“He’s a furriner,” said Roberts.

“Blest if I’ve ever ’eard the lingo afore,” said Bill.  “Does anybody rekernize it?”

Nobody did, and the skipper, after another attempt, gave it up, and, falling back upon the universal language of signs, pointed first to the man and then to the sea.  The other understood him, and, in a heavy, slovenly fashion, portrayed a man drifting in an open boat, and clutching and clambering up the side of a passing ship.  As his meaning dawned upon us, we rushed to the stern, and, leaning over, peered into the gloom, but the night was dark, and we saw nothing.

“Well,” said the skipper, turning to Bill, with a mighty yawn, “take him below, and give him some grub, and the next time a gentleman calls on you, don’t make such a confounded row about it.”

He went below, followed by the mate, and after some slight hesitation, Roberts stepped up to the intruder, and signed to him to follow.  He came stolidly enough, leaving a trail of water on the deck, and, after changing into the dry things we gave him, fell to, but without much appearance of hunger, upon some salt beef and biscuits, regarding us between bites with black, lack-lustre eyes.

“He seems as though he’s a-walking in his sleep,” said the cook.

“He ain’t very hungry,” said one of the men; “he seems to mumble his food.”

“Hungry!” repeated Bill, who had just left the wheel.  “Course he ain’t famished.  He had his tea last night.”

The men stared at him in bewilderment.

“Don’t you see?” said Bill, still in a hoarse whisper; “ain’t you ever seen them eyes afore?  Don’t you know what he used to say about dying?  It’s Jem Dadd come back to us.  Jem Dadd got another man’s body, as he always said he would.”

“Rot!” said Roberts, trying to speak bravely, but he got up, and, with the others, huddled together at the end of the fo’c’s’le, and stared in a bewildered fashion at the sodden face and short, squat figure of our visitor.  For his part, having finished his meal, he pushed his plate from him, and, leaning back on the locker, looked at the empty bunks.

Roberts caught his eye, and, with a nod and a wave of his hand, indicated the bunks.  The fellow rose from the locker, and, amid a breathless silence, climbed into one of them—­Jem Dadd’s!

He slept in the dead sailor’s bed that night, the only man in the fo’c’s’le who did sleep properly, and turned out heavily and lumpishly in the morning for breakfast.

The skipper had him on deck after the meal, but could make nothing of him.  To all his questions he replied in the strange tongue of the night before, and, though our fellows had been to many ports, and knew a word or two of several languages, none of them recognized it.  The skipper gave it up at last, and, left to himself, he stared about him for some time, regardless of our interest in his movements, and then, leaning heavily against the side of the ship, stayed there so long that we thought he must have fallen asleep.