This was why I had beaten Bill Sloggs; Sloggs had the crystal on him while we played, but would not use it; these sailors seemed to fear loneliness as some people fear being hurt; he was the only one of the three who could play chess at all, he had learnt it in order to be able to answer questions and keep up their pretence, but he had learnt it badly, as I found.  I never saw the crystal, they never showed it to anyone; but Jim Bunion told me that night that it was about the size that the thick end of a hen’s egg would be if it were round.  And then he fell asleep.

There were many more questions that I would have asked him but I could not wake him up.  I even pulled the table away so that he fell to the floor, but he slept on, and all the tavern was dark but for one candle burning; and it was then that I noticed for the first time that the other two sailors had gone, no one remained at all but Jim Bunion and I and the sinister barman of that curious inn, and he too was asleep.

When I saw that it was impossible to wake the sailor I went out into the night.  Next day Jim Bunion would talk of it no more; and when I went back to Stavlokratz I found him already putting on paper his theory about the sailors, which became accepted by chess-players, that one of them had been taught their curious gambit and that the other two between them had learnt all the defensive openings as well as general play.  Though who taught them no one could say, in spite of enquiries made afterwards all along the Southern Pacific.

I never learnt any more details from any of the three sailors, they were always too drunk to speak or else not drunk enough to be communicative.  I seem just to have taken Jim Bunion at the flood.  But I kept my promise, it was I that introduced them to the Tournament, and a pretty mess they made of established reputations.  And so they kept on for months, never losing a game and always playing for their pound a side.  I used to follow them wherever they went merely to watch their play.  They were more marvellous than Stavlokratz even in his youth.

But then they took to liberties such as giving their queen when playing first-class players.  And in the end one day when all three were drunk they played the best player in England with only a row of pawns.  They won the game all right.  But the ball broke to pieces.  I never smelt such a stench in all my life.

The three sailors took it stoically enough, they signed on to different ships and went back again to the sea, and the world of chess lost sight, for ever I trust, of the most remarkable players it ever knew, who would have altogether spoiled the game.

The Exiles Club