He nodded his head, slowly, keeping his gaze fixed on my face.

“How do you mean?” I asked, puzzled; yet with a vague sense that the man understood more, perhaps, than I had hitherto thought.

“I mean what’s ther Second so blessed cocksure about?”

He took a draw at his pipe, removed it, and leant forward somewhat, over his bunk-board.

“Didn’t he say nothin’ ter you, after you came hoff ther look-hout?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied; “he spotted me going aft.  He told me I was getting to imagining things too much.  He said I’d better come forrard and get a sleep.”

“An’ what did you say?”

“Nothing.  I came forrard.”

“Why didn’t you bloomin’ well harsk him if he weren’t doin’ ther imaginin’ trick when he sent us chasin’ hup ther main, hafter that bogyman of his?”

“I never thought of it,” I told him.

“Well, yer ought ter have.”

He paused, and sat up in his bunk, and asked for a match.

As I passed him my box, Quoin looked up from his game.

“It might ’ave been a stowaway, yer know.  Yer carn’t say as it’s ever been proved as it wasn’t.”

Stubbins passed the box back to me, and went on without noticing Quoin’s remark: 

“Told you to go an’ have a snooze, did he?  I don’t hunderstand what he’s bluffin’ at.”

“How do you mean, bluffing?” I asked.

He nodded his head, sagely.

“It’s my hidea he knows you saw that light, just as bloomin’ well as I do.”

Plummer looked up from his game, at this speech; but said nothing.

“Then you don’t doubt that I really saw it?” I asked, with a certain surprise.

“Not me,” he remarked, with assurance.  “You hain’t likely ter make that kind of mistake three times runnin’.”

“No,” I said.  “I know I saw the light, right enough; but”—­I hesitated a moment—­“it’s blessed queer.”

“It is blessed queer!” he agreed.  “It’s damned queer!  An’ there’s a lot of other damn queer things happenin’ aboard this packet lately.”

He was silent for a few seconds.  Then he spoke suddenly: 

“It’s not nat’ral, I’m damned sure of that much.”

He took a couple of draws at his pipe, and in the momentary silence, I caught Jaskett’s voice, above us.  He was hailing the poop.

“Red light on the starboard quarter, Sir,” I heard him sing out.

“There you are,” I said with a jerk of my head.  “That’s about where that packet I spotted, ought to be by now.  She couldn’t cross our bows, so she up helm, and let us pass, and now she’s hauled up again and gone under our stern.”

I got up from the chest, and went to the door, the other three following.  As we stepped out on deck, I heard the Second Mate shouting out, away aft, to know the whereabouts of the light.

“By Jove!  Stubbins,” I said.  “I believe the blessed thing’s gone again.”