“What more could Mary ask in the way of evidence than the sight of you in that place at that time?  Of course she was convinced, completely convinced.  And she behaved just as he knew she would behave—­she denounced you, and threw your ring in your face, and raced off home.  And you behaved just as he knew you would behave.  He was a slick devil!  He knew your pride and temper; he counted on them.  He knew you would be too proud to chase Mary down and demand a full explanation; that you would be too angry to sift the thing to the bottom.  You packed up and went off to New York that night to join your ship—­and that was just what he wanted you to do.

“Next morning you were gone, and—­they picked up little Beulah at the bottom of the cliffs.  And you gone in haste, without a word.  They said she jumped—­desertion, despair, you know what they would make of it.  The gossip—­and Abel Horn’s tale—­and you running away to sea.

“And I—­my flesh would creep when I looked at him.  I was certain she—­didn’t jump.  I tell you he was a devil.  There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do.  He didn’t have such a feeling as mercy.  Didn’t I find it out?  He wanted to get rid of me—­and he did.  Before the week was out; before Beulah was fairly buried, before Mary was outdoors again.  He showed those checks I had signed—­and I had to go, I had to go far and in a hurry.  After all I had done for him, that’s the way he treated me.”

There was a movement of chairs in the next room, and a scraping of feet.  There was more talk, Newman’s heavy murmur, and responding whines.  But I do not remember what else was said.  In fact, although I have given you Beasley’s tale in straight-forward fashion, I did not overhear it as I tell it.  I caught it in snatches, so to speak, rather disconnected snatches which I pieced together afterwards.  I heard this fellow, Beasley, talk while lying drowsing on the bed, and not trying particularly to understand his words.  In fact, I did drop off to sleep.  First thing I knew, the Knitting Swede was shaking me awake.  “Yump out of it, Yackie,” says he.  “We go aboard.”

I turned out, shouldered my sea-bag, and went downstairs.  There was Newman, with his dunnage, waiting.  He was alone.  There was no sign of my beggar about.  In fact, I never saw him again.  Newman’s face didn’t invite questions.

As a matter of fact, I didn’t even think of asking him questions.  I had forgotten Beasley; I was worrying about myself.  Now that the hour had come to join the ship, I wasn’t feeling quite so carefree and chesty.  I went into the bar, and poured Dutch courage into myself, until the Knitting Swede was ready to leave.

We rode down to the dock in a hack.  I was considerably elated when the vehicle drew up before the door; It is not every sailorman who rides down to the dock in a hack, you bet!  The Swede was spreading himself to give us a grand send-off, I thought!  But I changed my mind when we started.  The hack was on Newman’s account, solely; and he made a quick dash from the door to its shelter, with his face concealed by cap and pea-coat collar.  He didn’t want to be seen in the streets—­that is why we rode in the hack!