“You didn’t go down with your ship, then, after all,” said Captain Bowers, who had been looking on with much interest.

Amazement held Brisket dumb.  He turned and eyed Duckett inquiringly.  Then Tredgold, with his back to the others, caught his eye and frowned significantly.

[Illustration:  “Then Tredgold, with his back to the others, caught his eye and frowned significantly.”]

“If Captain Brisket didn’t go down with it I am sure that he was the last man to leave it,” he said, kindly; “and Mr. Duckett last but one.”

Mr. Duckett, distrustful of these compliments, cast an agonized glance at the door.

“Stobell was a bit rough just now,” said Tredgold, with another warning glance at Brisket, “but he didn’t like being shipwrecked.”

Brisket gazed at the door in his turn.  He had an uncomfortable feeling that he was being played with.

“It’s nothing much to like,” he said, at last, but—­”

“Tell us how you escaped,” said Tredgold; “or, perhaps,” he continued, hastily, as Brisket was about to speak—­“perhaps you would like first to hear how we did.”

“Perhaps that would be better,” said the perplexed Brisket.

He nudged the mate with his elbow, and Mr. Tredgold, still keeping him under the spell of his eye, began with great rapidity to narrate the circumstances attending the loss of the Fair Emily.  After one irrepressible grunt of surprise Captain Brisket listened without moving a muscle, but the changes on Mr. Duckett’s face were so extraordinary that on several occasions the narrator faltered and lost the thread of his discourse.  At such times Mr. Chalk took up the story, and once, when both seemed at a loss, a growling contribution came from Mr. Stobell.

“Of course, you got away in the other boat,” said Tredgold, nervously, when he had finished.

Brisket looked round shrewdly, his wits hard at work.  Already the advantages of adopting a story which he supposed to have been concocted for the benefit of Captain Bowers were beginning to multiply in his ready brain.

“And didn’t see us owing to the darkness,” prompted Tredgold, with a glance at Mr. Joseph Tasker, who was lingering by the door after bringing in some whisky.

“You’re quite right, sir,” said Brisket, after a trying pause.  “I didn’t see you.”

Unasked he took a chair, and with crossed legs and folded arms surveyed the company with a broad smile.

“You’re a fine sort of shipmaster,” exclaimed the indignant Captain Bowers.  “First you throw away your ship, and then you let your passengers shift for themselves.”

“I am responsible to my owners,” said Brisket.  “Have you any fault to find with me, gentlemen?” he demanded, turning on them with a frown.

Tredgold and Chalk hastened to reassure him.

“In the confusion the boat got adrift,” said Brisket.  “You’ve got their own word for it.  Not that they didn’t behave well for landsmen:  Mr. Chalk’s pluck was wonderful, and Mr. Tredgold was all right.”