“What?” I said.  Though I knew what he meant.

“Them syles,” he answered, and made a gesture towards the fore royal.

I glanced up, briefly.  All the lee side of the sail was adrift, from the bunt gasket outwards.  Lower, I saw Tom; he was just hoisting himself into the t’gallant rigging.

Williams spoke again.

“We lost two on ’em just sime way, comin’ art.”

“Two of the men!” I exclaimed.

“Yus!” he said tersely.

“I can’t understand,” I went on.  “I never heard anything about it.”

“Who’d yer got ter tell yer abart it?” he asked.

I made no reply to his question; indeed, I had scarcely comprehended it, for the problem of what I ought to do in the matter had risen again in my mind.

“I’ve a good mind to go aft and tell the Second Mate all I know,” I said.  “He’s seen something himself that he can’t explain away, and—­and anyway I can’t stand this state of things.  If the Second Mate knew all—­”

“Garn!” he cut in, interrupting me.  “An’ be told yer’re a blastid hidiot.  Not yer.  Yer sty were yer are.”

I stood irresolute.  What he had said, was perfectly correct, and I was positively stumped what to do for the best.  That there was danger aloft, I was convinced; though if I had been asked my reasons for supposing this, they would have been hard to find.  Yet of its existence, I was as certain as though my eyes already saw it.  I wondered whether, being so ignorant of the form it would assume, I could stop it by joining Tom on the yard?  This thought came as I stared up at the royal.  Tom had reached the sail, and was standing on the foot-rope, close in to the bunt.  He was bending over the yard, and reaching down for the slack of the sail.  And then, as I looked, I saw the belly of the royal tossed up and down abruptly, as though a sudden heavy gust of wind had caught it.

“I’m blimed—!” Williams began, with a sort of excited expectation.  And then he stopped as abruptly as he had begun.  For, in a moment, the sail had thrashed right over the after side of the yard, apparently knocking Tom clean from off the foot-rope.

“My God!” I shouted out loud.  “He’s gone!”

For an instant there was a blur over my eyes, and Williams was singing out something that I could not catch.  Then, just as quickly, it went, and I could see again, clearly.

Williams was pointing, and I saw something black, swinging below the yard.  Williams called out something fresh, and made a run for the fore rigging.  I caught the last part——­

“—­ther garskit.”

Straightway, I knew that Tom had managed to grab the gasket as he fell, and I bolted after Williams to give him a hand in getting the youngster into safety.