“You were; and I am glad to hear you acknowledge it.  Now, what I want to say is this.  Had affairs gone in the least as I expected, I should have held you to ‘strict service,’ as we used to say on the old packets.  I never tolerated a favourite on board, and never shall.  But these ladies don’t make a favourite of you; that’s not the trouble.  The trouble—­no, I won’t call it even that—­is that you and they all cannot help taking the bit between your teeth.  It don’t appear to be your fault; you wasn’t bred to the sea, and can’t tumble to sea-fashions.  ‘So much the worse,’ a man might say.  The plague of it is, I can’t be sure; and after casting it up and down, I’ve determined to let you have your way.”

“You don’t mean, sir, that you’re going to resign!” said I, confounded.

“No, I don’t.  Saving your objections, boy, I was elected captain, and it don’t do away with my responsibility that I choose to let discipline go to the winds.  If mischief comes I shall be to blame, because I might have stopped it but didn’t.”

I was silent.  This should have been the time for me to tell what I had discovered that afternoon; of the graveyard and the two strange women.  But shame tied my tongue.  I saw that this noble gentleman, in imparting his thoughts to me, was really condescending to ask my pardon; and the injustice of it was so monstrous that I felt a delicacy in letting him know the extent of my unworthiness.  I temporized, and promised myself a better occasion.

“But are you quite sure, sir, that yours was not the wisest plan, after all?”

“The question is not worth considering,” he answered.  “My policy—­ you would hardly call it a plan, for it wholly depended on circumstances—­no longer exists.  The ladies, you see, have forced my hand.”

I forbore to tell him that if the ladies had forced his hand his accepting full responsibility was simply quixotic.

“She’s a wonderful woman,” said I, by way of filling up the pause.

“And so womanly!” assented Captain Branscome, to my entire surprise.

“Indeed, sir,” I stammered.  “Well, I have heard people say—­Mr. Rogers for one—­that Miss Belcher ought to have been born a man.”

“Miss Belcher?  Why, heavens alive, boy, I was referring to Miss Plinlimmon!”

He dismissed me with a wave of the hand, but called me back as I turned to the door.

“Oh, by the way,” said he, “I had almost forgotten the reason why I sent for you.  This man—­have you any notion who he can be?”

“None, sir.”

“You’ve thought over every possible person of your acquaintance?  Well”—­as I nodded—­“we shall know to-morrow morning, if he keeps his word.  Mr. Rogers has kindly undertaken to stay and look after the schooner.  He has a sense of discipline, by the way, has Mr. Rogers.”

“If you wish me, sir, to stay with him-”

“Thank you,” he interrupted dryly, “but we shall need you ashore; in the first place to indentify this mysterious stranger, and also to help protect the ladies.  Their escort, Heaven knows, is not excessive.  We take the gig, and if the man fails to appear, or brings even so much as one companion, I give the word to return.”