“Well, what’s up, anyway?” he inquired, suspiciously.  “What’s happened?”

He had bent forward, and was peering at Tom.  I started to explain; but he cut me short with: 

“Is he dead?”

“No, Sir,” I said.  “I don’t think so; but the poor beggar’s had a bad fall.  He was hanging by the gasket when we got to him.  The sail knocked him off the yard.”

“What?” he said, sharply.

“The wind caught the sail, and it lashed back over the yard—­”

“What wind?” he interrupted.  “There’s no wind, scarcely.”  He shifted his weight on to the other foot.  “What do you mean?”

“I mean what I say, Sir.  The wind brought the foot of the sail over the top of the yard and knocked Tom clean off the foot-rope.  Williams and I both saw it happen.”

“But there’s no wind to do such a thing; you’re talking nonsense!”

It seemed to me that there was as much of bewilderment as anything else in his voice; yet I could tell that he was suspicious—­though, of what, I doubted whether he himself could have told.

He glanced at Williams, and seemed about to say something.  Then, seeming to change his mind, he turned, and sung out to one of the men who had followed him aloft, to go down and pass out a coil of new, three-inch manilla, and a tailblock.

“Smartly now!” he concluded.

“i, i, Sir,” said the man, and went down swiftly.

The Second Mate turned to me.

“When you’ve got Tom below, I shall want a better explanation of all this, than the one you’ve given me.  It won’t wash.”

“Very well, Sir,” I answered.  “But you won’t get any other.”

“What do you mean?” he shouted at me.  “I’ll let you know I’ll have no impertinence from you or any one else.”

“I don’t mean any impertinence, Sir—­I mean that it’s the only explanation there is to give.”

“I tell you it won’t wash!” he repeated.  “There’s something too damned funny about it all.  I shall have to report the matter to the Captain.  I can’t tell him that yarn—­” He broke off abruptly.

“It’s not the only damned funny thing that’s happened aboard this old hooker,” I answered.  “You ought to know that, Sir.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, quickly.

“Well, Sir,” I said, “to be straight, what about that chap you sent us hunting after up the main the other night?  That was a funny enough affair, wasn’t it?  This one isn’t half so funny.”

“That will do, Jessop!” he said, angrily.  “I won’t have any back talk.”  Yet there was something about his tone that told me I had got one in on my own.  He seemed all at once less able to appear confident that I was telling him a fairy tale.

After that, for perhaps half a minute, he said nothing.  I guessed he was doing some hard thinking.  When he spoke again it was on the matter of getting the Ordinary down on deck.

“One of you’ll have to go down the lee side and steady him down,” he concluded.