‘What had you got?’ asked Logan.

‘The Beathach na Loch na bheiste,’ said Potter.  ’I drained the Loch to get him.  Fortunately,’ he added, ‘it was at the expense of the Trust.’

After a few words of commonplace but heartfelt condolence, Logan descended the companion, and followed Bude and Captain Funkal into the cabin of that officer.  The captain placed refreshments on the table.

‘Now, gentlemen,’ he said, ’you have seen the least riled of my professors, and you can guess what the rest are like.  Professor Rustler is weeping in his cabin over a shrivelled old mummy.  “Never will he speak again,” says he, and I am bound to say that I hev heard the critter discourse once.  The mummy let some awful yells out of him when the fire-bugs came aboard.’

‘Yes, we heard a human cry,’ said Bude.

‘I had thought the talk was managed with a concealed gramophone,’ said the captain, ’but it wasn’t.  The Bunyip from Central Australia has gone to his long home.  That was Professor Wilkinson’s pet.  There is nothing left alive out of the lot but the natives that Professor Jenkins of England brought in irons from Cagayan Sulu.  I reckon them two niggers are somehow at the bottom of the whole ruction.’

‘Indeed, and why?’ asked Bude.

‘Why, sir—­I am addressing Professor Jones Harvey?’

Bude bowed.  ’Harvey, captain, but not professor—­simple amateur seaman and explorer.’

‘Sir, your hand,’ said the captain.  ‘Your friend is not a professor?’

‘Not I,’ said Logan, smiling.

The captain solemnly shook hands.  ‘Gentlemen, you have sand,’ he said, a supreme tribute of respect.  ’Well, about these two natives.  I never liked taking them aboard.  They are, in consequence of the triumph of our arms, American subjects, natives of the conquered Philippines.  I am no lawyer, and they may be citizens, they may have votes.  They are entitled, anyway, to the protection of the Flag, and I would have entered them as steerage passengers.  But that Professor Jenkins (and the other professors agreed) would have it that they came under the head of scientific exhibits.  And they did allow that the critters were highly dangerous.  I guess they were right.’

‘Why, what could they do?’

’Well, gentlemen, I heard stories on shore that I took no stock in.  I am not a superstitious man, but they allowed that these darkeys are not of a common tribe, but what the papers call “highly developed mediums.”  And I guess they are at the bottom of the stramash.’

‘Captain Funkal, may I be frank with you?’ asked Bude.

‘I am hearing you,’ said the captain.

’Then, to put it shortly, I have been at Cagayan Sulu before, on an exploring cruise.  That was in 1897.  I never wanted to go back to it.  Logan, did I not regret the choice of that port when the news reached us in New Zealand?’