“It was me, sir.  I let go the wheel for a second to stamp over your head.  I am afraid there’s something wrong with the mate.”

“Where’s he got to?” asked the captain sharply.

The man, who was obviously nervous, said: 

“The last I saw of him was as he-fell down the port poop-ladder.”

“Fell down the poop-ladder!  What did he do that for?  What made him?”

“I don’t know, sir.  He was walking the port side.  Then just as he turned towards me to come aft...”

“You saw him?” interrupted the captain.

“I did.  I was looking at him.  And I heard the crash, too—­something awful.  Like the mainmast going overboard.  It was as if something had struck him.”

Captain Johns became very uneasy and alarmed.  “Come,” he said sharply.  “Did anybody strike him?  What did you see?”

“Nothing, sir, so help me!  There was nothing to see.  He just gave a little sort of hallo! threw his hands before him, and over he went—­crash.  I couldn’t hear anything more, so I just let go the wheel for a second to call you up.”

“You’re scared!” said Captain Johns.  “I am, sir, straight!”

Captain Johns stared at him.  The silence of his ship driving on her way seemed to contain a danger—­a mystery.  He was reluctant to go and look for his mate himself, in the shadows of the main-deck, so quiet, so still.

All he did was to advance to the break of the poop, and call for the watch.  As the sleepy men came trooping aft, he shouted to them fiercely: 

“Look at the foot of the port poop-ladder, some of you!  See the mate lying there?”

Their startled exclamations told him immediately that they did see him.  Somebody even screeched out emotionally:  “He’s dead!”

Mr. Bunter was laid in his bunk and when the lamp in his room was lit he looked indeed as if he were dead, but it was obvious also that he was breathing yet.  The steward had been roused out, the second mate called and sent on deck to look after the ship, and for an hour or so Captain Johns devoted himself silently to the restoring of consciousness.  Mr. Bunter at last opened his eyes, but he could not speak.  He was dazed and inert.  The steward bandaged a nasty scalp-wound while Captain Johns held an additional light.  They had to cut away a lot of Mr. Bunter’s jet-black hair to make a good dressing.  This done, and after gazing for a while at their patient, the two left the cabin.

“A rum go, this, steward,” said Captain Johns in the passage.

“Yessir.”

“A sober man that’s right in his head does not fall down a poop-ladder like a sack of potatoes.  The ship’s as steady as a church.”

“Yessir.  Fit of some kind, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“Well, I should.  He doesn’t look as if he were subject to fits and giddiness.  Why, the man’s in the prime of life.  I wouldn’t have another kind of mate—­not if I knew it.  You don’t think he has a private store of liquor, do you, eh?  He seemed to me a bit strange in his manner several times lately.  Off his feed, too, a bit, I noticed.”