Mr. Jukes, who had been scanning the shore through a pair of glasses, informed the chief engineer afterwards that “our late second mate hasn’t been long in finding a friend.  A chap looking uncommonly like a bummer.  I saw them walk away together from the quay.”

The hammering and banging of the needful repairs did not disturb Captain MacWhirr.  The steward found in the letter he wrote, in a tidy chart-room, passages of such absorbing interest that twice he was nearly caught in the act.  But Mrs. MacWhirr, in the drawing-room of the forty-pound house, stifled a yawn—­perhaps out of self-respect—­for she was alone.

She reclined in a plush-bottomed and gilt hammock-chair near a tiled fireplace, with Japanese fans on the mantel and a glow of coals in the grate.  Lifting her hands, she glanced wearily here and there into the many pages.  It was not her fault they were so prosy, so completely uninteresting—­from “My darling wife” at the beginning, to “Your loving husband” at the end.  She couldn’t be really expected to understand all these ship affairs.  She was glad, of course, to hear from him, but she had never asked herself why, precisely.

“. . .  They are called typhoons . . .  The mate did not seem to like it . . .  Not in books . . .  Couldn’t think of letting it go on. . . .”

The paper rustled sharply. “. . . .  A calm that lasted more than twenty minutes,” she read perfunctorily; and the next words her thoughtless eyes caught, on the top of another page, were:  “see you and the children again. . . .”  She had a movement of impatience.  He was always thinking of coming home.  He had never had such a good salary before.  What was the matter now?

It did not occur to her to turn back overleaf to look.  She would have found it recorded there that between 4 and 6 A. M. on December 25th, Captain MacWhirr did actually think that his ship could not possibly live another hour in such a sea, and that he would never see his wife and children again.  Nobody was to know this (his letters got mislaid so quickly)—­nobody whatever but the steward, who had been greatly impressed by that disclosure.  So much so, that he tried to give the cook some idea of the “narrow squeak we all had” by saying solemnly, “The old man himself had a dam’ poor opinion of our chance.”

“How do you know?” asked, contemptuously, the cook, an old soldier.  “He hasn’t told you, maybe?”

“Well, he did give me a hint to that effect,” the steward brazened it out.

“Get along with you!  He will be coming to tell me next,” jeered the old cook, over his shoulder.

Mrs. MacWhirr glanced farther, on the alert. “. . .  Do what’s fair. . .  Miserable objects . . . .  Only three, with a broken leg each, and one . . .  Thought had better keep the matter quiet . . . hope to have done the fair thing. . . .”

She let fall her hands.  No:  there was nothing more about coming home.  Must have been merely expressing a pious wish.  Mrs. MacWhirr’s mind was set at ease, and a black marble clock, priced by the local jeweller at 3L. 18s. 6d., had a discreet stealthy tick.