“We know all the knots you can show us, Ben, and perhaps a good many more,” grunted Percival.  “The boat was tied all right, but——­”

“Wha’ was yo’ goin’ to say, sah?” asked Bucephalus.

“Some one untied it,” said Percival.  “Who brought it back, Buck?”

“Ah donno, sah, Ah didn’ saw dem, othahwise Ah could identify de pussons.  Have yo’ any ideah as to deir pussonality you’se’f, sah?”

“I have an idea, but ideas can’t hang a man.  Anyhow, I don’t want it to get abroad that Jack Sheldon and I do not know how to tie up a boat or tie any ordinary kind of knot.  The whole Academy would laugh at us if that notion got around.”

“Ah reckon de ‘cademy knows all abo’t yo’ an’ Mistah Jack a’ready an’ wha’ yo’ done befo’ dis,” said the negro with a broad grin.  “Ah reckon, too, dat de story was a fabrication puah an’ simple.  Fact am, if Ah done tol’ a story lak dat folks would call it a lie witho’t mincin’ wo’ds.”

“That’s about what it was,” said Percival, as he and Jack got into the boat, and Bucephalus and Ben Bowline started to row them to the yacht.

“I had a comical adventure with a boat myself once, mateys, if you care to hear it,” said old Ben as he bent leisurely upon his oar, “but maybe the young gentleman won’t believe it.”

“Go ahead, Ben, let’s have it,” spoke up Jack.  “Never mind whether we believe it or not.  It will amuse us at any rate.”

“A sailor man is a mo’ pribileged pusson dan one what resides on sho’, Ah’ve noticed,” observed Bucephalus.  “Folks lak to listen to dem an’ dey don’ call it lyin’, whereas an’ on de oder han’, ef Ah indulge in any picturesque adaptations o’ de trufe dey say Ah’m lyin’ right away.”

“Never mind that,” chuckled Percival.  “There is no hurry and Ben wants to spin his yarn, so you might as well let him.  Take it easy.  There is no hurry.  Go ahead, Ben.”

The old sailor was a good deal mollified by Dick’s present attitude, and taking an easy stroke with his oar, he began his more or less veracious narrative.

“It was down on the coast o’ South Ameriky that this here thing happened, but I never had it put in the log ‘cause the old man wasn’t along an’ nothin’ went into it that he didn’t see hisself; but it’s just as true, I’m giving you my word——­”

“As the one about the whale!” roared Dick.  “Go on, Ben.”

“We was sailin’ along the coast o’ South Ameriky,” Ben went on, “when one day as I was cleanin’ out one o’ the boats to have ready when we went ashore, which we judged would be in a little while, there come up a sudden squall an’ I was chucked clean overboard, boat and all.

“Davits, falls, blocks and everything went, and me too, striking the water kerplump.  Then it got so dark that I couldn’t see nothin’, and where I was I had no idee, no more’n nothin’, ’cause I couldn’t see a thing and there was such a noise all around that I couldn’t hear a thing.  Then it come on to rain for further orders and I was just drenched to the skin and had all I could do to keep the boat bailed out.