“Uneasy!” repeated Mr. Chalk.

“Aye,” said the captain, drawing a deep breath.  “And if I tell you that I am too, it wouldn’t be outside the truth.”

“But why?” inquired Mr. Chalk, after they had paced once up and down the deck in silence.

“It’s the mystery we don’t like,” said Brisket, at last.  “How are we to know what desperate venture you are going to let us in for?  Follow you faithful we will, but we don’t like going in the dark; it ain’t quite fair to us.”

“There’s not the slightest danger in the world,” said Mr. Chalk, with impressive earnestness.

“But there’s a mystery; you can’t deny that,” said the captain.

Mr. Chalk cleared his throat.  “It’s a secret,” he said, slowly.

“From me?” inquired the captain, in reproachful accents.

“It isn’t my secret,” said Mr. Chalk.  “So far as I’m concerned I’d tell you with pleasure.”

The captain slowly withdrew his arm from Mr. Chalk’s, and moving to the side leaned over it with his shoulders hunched.  Somewhat moved by this display of feeling, Mr. Chalk for some time hesitated to disturb him, and when at last he did steal up and lay a friendly hand on the captain’s shoulder it was gently shaken off.

“Secrets!” said Brisket, in a hollow voice.  “From me!  I ain’t to be trusted?”

“It isn’t my doing,” said Mr. Chalk.

“Well, well, it don’t matter, sir,” said the captain.  “Bill Brisket must put up with it.  It’s the first time in his life he’s been suspected, and it’s doubly hard coming from you.  You’ve hurt me, sir, and there’s no other man living could do that.”

Mr. Chalk stood by in sorrowful perplexity.

“And I put my life in your hands,” continued the captain, with a low, hard laugh.  “You’re the, only man in the world that knows who killed Smiling Peter in San Francisco, and I told you.  Well, well!”

“But you did it in self-defence,” said the other, eagerly.

“What does that matter?” said the captain, turning and walking forward, followed by the anxious Mr. Chalk.  “I’ve got no proof of it.  Open your mouth—­once—­and I swing for it.  That’s the extent of my trust in you.”

Mr. Chalk, much affected, swore a few sailorly oaths as to what he wished might happen to him if he ever betrayed the other’s confidence.

“Yes,” said the captain, mournfully,” that’s all very well; but you can’t trust me in a smaller matter, however much I swear to keep it secret.  And it’s weighing on me in another way:  I believe the crew have got an inkling of something, and here am I, master of the ship, responsible for all your lives, kept in ignorance.”

“The crew!” ejaculated the startled Mr. Chalk.

Captain Brisket hesitated and lowered his voice.  “The other night I came on deck for a look round and saw one of them peeping down through your skylight,” he said, slowly.  “I sent him below, and after he’d gone I looked down and saw you and Mr. Tredgold and Stobell all bending over a paper.”