“But are you sure, Willis?”

“Suppose you met Ernest or Frank in the street to-morrow, pale, meagre, and in rags, would you recognize them?”

“Most assuredly.”

“Well, by the same token, sailors can always recognize a ship they have sailed in.  They know the form of every plank and the line of every bend.  There are hundreds of marks that get spliced in the memory, and are never forgotten.  But in the present case there is no room for any doubt, a portion of the figure head is still extant, and the word Nelson can be made out without spectacles.”

“But how did it get there?”

“You know, Master Fritz, it could not have told me, even if I had taken the trouble to inquire.”

“Very true, Willis.”

“I was determined, however, to find it out some other way, so I steered for a cafe near the harbor, where the pilots and long-shore captains go to play at dominoes.  I was in hopes of picking up some stray waif of information, and, sooth to say, I was not altogether disappointed.”

“Another meeting, I’ll be bound,” said Jack.

“My falling in with the Nelson astonished you, did it not?”

“Rather.”

“Then I’ll bet my best pipe that this one will surprise you still more.  You recollect my comrade, Bill, alias Bob, of the Hoboken?”

“Yes, perfectly.”

“Then I met him.”

“What! the man who had both his legs shot off, and died in consequence of his wounds?” inquired Jack.

“The same.”

“And that was afterwards thrown overboard with a twenty-four pound shot tied to his feet!” exclaimed Fritz.

“The same.”

At this astonishing assertion the young men regarded Willis with an air of apprehension.

“You think I am mad, no doubt, do you not?”

“Whatever can we think, Willis?”

“I admit that my statement looks very like it at first sight, but still you are wrong, as you will see by-and-by.  I could scarcely believe my eyes when I saw him.  ‘Is that you, Bill Stubbs,’ says I, ‘at last?’

“‘Lor love ye!’ says he, ‘is that you, Pilot?’

“He then took hold of my hand, and gave it such a shake as almost wrenched it off.

“‘Where in all the earth did you hail from?’ he said.  ’I thought you were dead and gone?’

“‘And I thought you were the same,’ said I, ‘and no mistake.’

“’Alive and hearty though, as you see, Pilot; only a little at sea amongst the mounseers.’

“‘But what about the Hoboken?’ says I.

“‘What Hoboken?’ says he.

“‘Were you not aboard a Yankee cruiser some months back?’

“‘Never was aboard a Yankee in all my life,’ says Bill.

“And no more he was, for he never left the Nelson till she was high and dry in Havre dockyard; so, the short and the long of it is, that I must have been wrong in that instance.”