“Send a man for it, Mr. Harris.  Is it in the sheath, you Petrak?”

“Can’t say, sir,” said Petrak, looking about nervously, and feeling at his belt.

“Can’t say!  Can’t say!  You can’t say because that’s yer knife right there under yer eyes!  That’s yer knife and you killed this man!”

“Tell the truth, my good man,” interjected Meeker, holding up his hands.  “Tell the truth and—­”

“Belay!” yelled Riggs.  “You speak when ye’re spoken to, Mr. Meeker, if you please!”

“No offence intended—­purely involuntary on my part.  I beg your pardon, my dear sir.”

“That’s your knife and you killed him,” repeated Riggs to Petrak.

“Never killed him, sir, and nobody else, strike me blind if I did, and that’s the truth, sir,” said Petrak doggedly, but in spite of his brave showing there was a whimper in his voice and his knees trembled.  “Did you have an accomplice?” asked Meeker, and I thought I saw some sort of a signal pass between them.

Buckrow arrived from the forecastle with a leather sheath and a knife in it.  He handed it to Harris.

“There’s my knife!” yelled Petrak.  “That’s it, just as I said, and Bucky found it in my bunk where I said it was, strike me blind!”

Captain Riggs was nonplussed for a second at this, and he hesitated.  Then he looked at Buckrow, who was trying to get past Harris into the passage again.

“Buckrow!  Wait a minute, my man!  Where’s your knife?”

“My knife?” said Buckrow in amazement.  “My knife?”

“Yes, the knife you had when you were here first.  Where is it now?  It ain’t in your belt.”

Buckrow reached to his hip, and consternation pulled his face into varying expressions as he found his sheath empty.  But we knew his astonishment was simulated.

“Damme if it bain’t gone!  Some of them cussed chinks must ’ave a tooken it.  It was—­”

“That’s all very well,” said Riggs.  “The redheaded one is our man.”

“Where’s that bleedin’ knife?” said Buckrow, fumbling at his belt.

“Never mind that,” put in Riggs.  “That’s your knife there in the red fellow’s sheath, and this is settled until it is turned over to the judge.  Put this man Petrak, or whatever his name is, in irons, Mr. Harris; and you, Buckrow, you know more than you’ll tell.  Mind what you’re about or you’ll be clapped in irons, too, along with your mate here.  Have the body wrapped with some firebars, Mr. Harris, to be buried in the morning.  That’s all.  Double irons, Mr. Harris.”

“I never done for him, and that gent knows it,” wailed Petrak, as Harris put his hand on his shoulder to take him away.  To my amazement, Petrak pointed his finger at me.

“What’s that?” said Riggs sharply.

“Tell all you know, my good man,” said Meeker despite the caution Riggs had given him about interfering.

“The gent in the white suit knows all about it.  I done for this chap, and the writin’ chap, that I brought his bag aboard, paid me for it.  Said he would, and gave me some of the money on deck to-day.  You saw him, cap’n—­you saw him hand-in’ me the silver, sir.  He’s in it, too, and—­”