“You’ve been reading books,” said Captain Riggs.  “What I need is a mate, not a detective.  But go on, Mr. Harris—­maybe ye’re right—­I’m getting old and trustful.”

“That ain’t my main p’int, either,” continued Harris.  “What I mean is this—­come to think it over, the lampman didn’t leave the ship’s side until after the Greek was cut up ashore.  It was the parson who put the police on to the lampman.”

“This same parson, Mr. Harris?  Ye ain’t sure about that?”

“Oh, shucks!  Think thar’s fourteen thousand parsons runnin’ around Manila with a red-headed sailor that’s too handy by far with a knife?  Ain’t I got brains in my head?  He had to make room for his pals aboard here, didn’t he?  It’s plain as Cape Cod Light to me, cap’n.”

“Well, what does it all mean?  You suppose this is what they want?”

“Ye don’t guess they killed the bos’n and this Trego just for friendship sake, do ye?  If ye want to know what my personal, private feelings are, it looks like we’ve been boarded by the Devil’s Admiral.”

“Sally Ann’s black cat!” said Riggs.  “That story was started by some sea-lawyer full of gin, and the newspapers took it up for fun.  There ain’t no more a Devil’s Admiral than there is a Flying Dutchman.”

“Wal, didn’t I see the Flying Dutchman off the cape with my own eyes when I was second in the brig Peerless?  Ye can’t tell me thar ain’t no Flying Dutchman, and ye can’t make me believe thar ain’t no Devil’s Admiral—­I’ve been told some things about both of ’em, and dang me for a blue-nose fisherman if I don’t believe in ’em both!”

“Who is your Devil’s Admiral aboard here, then?”

“The parson.”

“You’re full of hashish!  You been bothered lately with your head, Mr. Harris?”

“That’s all right, cap’n.  When a man looks overside and says ten knots and better, and the log says ten knots and a shade, he ain’t no landsman.  He spits to looward like a commodore, that parson, and I’ve had my suspicions right along.”

“All buncombe.  You been readin’ too many Manila newspapers.”

“Yes, and I see a few things on deck, too, that ain’t got nothin’ to do with newspapers.  Petrak, Buckrow, and the long lime-juicer was all pretty thick when no one was lookin’ at ’em.  And they don’t let on to know each other, neither.  Askin’ one another their names when I was standin’ by, and soon as my back was turned thick as flies at a molasses-barrel, sneakin’ round and whisperin’.

“‘Who’s the red chap?’ asks Long Jim from Buckrow, when he knows I can hear.

“‘Says he’s out of a collier,’ says Buckrow, speakin’ loud a purpose so I can hear.

“The next I know, cap’n, Reddy was tellin’ Long Jim that Buckrow never paid him that two bob for a round of drinks in the Flagship Bar before the cuttin’.  Don’t that sound funny?  Then when Petrak takes the wheel I asks him if he knows Long Jim, and he says not afore he come aboard, and Buckrow says the same.