“But I don’t believe anybody would broach cargo.  We can keep the door locked, and bury this under a mess of stuff, say spare chain and a lot of old heavy gear.”

“Broach Tophet!” snorted Harris.  “Ye call this cargo, Cap’n Riggs?  Wal, if ye do, I don’t!  Broach cargo!  Think a man that would kill Trego, or get him killed, would stop at broaching cargo to git his paws on this?”

“That’s true enough,” said Riggs.  “It’s bad business to have it aboard, Mr. Harris.  I hope nobody in the ship knows about it.  If they find out it may lead to trouble, and I’m too old to have trouble with my ships now.  I’ve had trouble enough this night as it is—­”

“That ain’t the idea at all, cap’n,” said Harris, entirely out of patience.  “Ye’ve had trouble already, and all over this, and ye’ll have more of it, and ye can’t avoid it.  We got some pretty fancy passengers aboard, and I’ll bet my shirt the parson and Mr. Trenhum knows; and what’s more, that parson ain’t no more a parson than I be—­if he’s a parson I’m a bishop.  Now, them two brought a bad lot aboard with ’em—­Petrak, thar in irons, and this Buckrow, and Long Jim.”

“It does look queer,” admitted Riggs.

“Trego had his suspicions all the time, cap’n.  They got him before he could tell ye what he guessed.  Trego never liked the both of ’em.  When ye come to look this thing over in yer mind, a little at a time, it gits plain to me.  Ye see, the parson brought Long Jim and Buckrow; and Tryhum, or whatever his name is, brung Petrak to do his part of the dirty work.

“Now, look what I’m sayin’, cap’n.  We got short-handed quick thar in Manila, didn’t we?  I been turnin’ that over in my mind, too.  Somebody cut the boatswain, didn’t they?  The police got that Lascar quartermaster who we had for lampman, didn’t they?  That’s two men gone, ain’t it?

“Look a here.  The police come aboard lookin’ for a little red-headed sailor they said done the killin’, and I told ’em they was dreamin’; but they said the lampman, who they took for the murder, blamed it on a little red-headed sailor.  I just told ’em I guessed the lampman was their man, and they said a parson told ’em he done the killin’, but they wanted to find this little red-headed sailor ’cause he had some hand in it, so some witnesses said.

“See what I’m drivin’ at?  I didn’t know about no red-headed man, and I didn’t want to.  We had to get out of Manila, and I didn’t want to be monkeyin’ around with no courts nor judges, and I let the police have their own say, and agreed with ’em when I saw a chance to keep clear, and disagreed when I saw it would delay us to get tangled up in the killin’ of the bos’n.”

“Well, I don’t see what all that has got to do with this,” said Captain Riggs.

“Ye don’t?  Look a here!  One of our men cut up; a red-headed little sailor has a hand in it of some sort; a parson tells the police our lampman done it, and thar goes another of our hands.  Who do we git in their place?  A parson for a passenger and two men of his own he brings aboard.  Looks like he made room for ’em, cap’n.”