“Don’t it look a little as if you were trying to avoid the wreck?” asked Jim.

It was my own doing; there was no retreat.  “My dear fellow, if you make a point of it, here goes!” said I, and launched with spurious gaiety into the current of my tale.  I told it with point and spirit; described the island and the wreck, mimicked Anderson and the Chinese, maintained the suspense....  My pen has stumbled on the fatal word.  I maintained the suspense so well that it was never relieved; and when I stopped—­I dare not say concluded, where there was no conclusion—­I found Jim and Mamie regarding me with surprise.

“Well?” said Jim.

“Well, that’s all,” said I.

“But how do you explain it?” he asked.

“I can’t explain it,” said I.

Mamie wagged her head ominously.

“But, great Caesar’s ghost! the money was offered!” cried Jim.  “It won’t do, Loudon; it’s nonsense, on the face of it!  I don’t say but what you and Nares did your best; I’m sure, of course, you did; but I do say, you got fooled.  I say the stuff is in that ship to-day, and I say I mean to get it.”

“There is nothing in the ship, I tell you, but old wood and iron!” said I.

“You’ll see,” said Jim.  “Next time I go myself.  I’ll take Mamie for the trip; Longhurst won’t refuse me the expense of a schooner.  You wait till I get the searching of her.”

“But you can’t search her!” cried I.  “She’s burned.”

“Burned!” cried Mamie, starting a little from the attitude of quiescent capacity in which she had hitherto sat to hear me, her hands folded in her lap.

There was an appreciable pause.

“I beg your pardon, Loudon,” began Jim at last, “but why in snakes did you burn her?”

“It was an idea of Nares’s,” said I.

“This is certainly the strangest circumstance of all,” observed Mamie.

“I must say, Loudon, it does seem kind of unexpected,” added Jim.  “It seems kind of crazy even.  What did you—­what did Nares expect to gain by burning her?”

“I don’t know; it didn’t seem to matter; we had got all there was to get,” said I.

“That’s the very point,” cried Jim.  “It was quite plain you hadn’t.”

“What made you so sure?” asked Mamie.

“How can I tell you?” I cried.  “We had been all through her.  We WERE sure; that’s all that I can say.”

“I begin to think you were,” she returned, with a significant emphasis.

Jim hurriedly intervened.  “What I don’t quite make out, Loudon, is that you don’t seem to appreciate the peculiarities of the thing,” said he.  “It doesn’t seem to have struck you same as it does me.”

“Pshaw! why go on with this?” cried Mamie, suddenly rising.  “Mr. Dodd is not telling us either what he thinks or what he knows.”

“Mamie!” cried Jim.

“You need not be concerned for his feelings, James; he is not concerned for yours,” returned the lady.  “He dare not deny it, besides.  And this is not the first time he has practised reticence.  Have you forgotten that he knew the address, and did not tell it you until that man had escaped?”