Conroy saw what happened as a grotesque trick of circumstance.  The mate, as the deck slanted, slipped and reached for the hand-rail with an ejaculation.  The water flowed about his knees; he fell back against the hand-rail, which was just high enough for him to sit on. lit was what, for one ridiculous moment, he seemed to be doing.  The next, his booted feet swayed up and he fell over backward, amid the confusion of splashing water that leaped down the main-deck.  Conroy heard him strike something below with a queer, smacking noise.

“Pity he didn’t go overboard while he was about it,” he said to himself, acting out his role.  Really, he was rather startled and dismayed.

He found the mate coiled in the scupper, very wet and still.  He took hold of him to draw him under the forecastle head, where he would have shelter, and was alarmed at the inertness of the body under his hands.

“Sir!” he cried, “sir!-sir!”

He shook the great shoulders, bat quickly desisted; there was something horrible, something that touched his nerves, in its irresponsiveness.  He remembered that he might probably find matches in the lamp-locker, and staggered there to search.  He had to grope in gross darkness about the place, touching brass and the uncanny smoothness of glass, before his hand fell on what he sought.  At last he was on one knee by the mate’s side, and a match shed its little illumination.  The mate’s face was odd in its quietude, and the sou’- wester of oilskin was still on his head, held there by the string under the chin.  From under its edge blood flowed steadily, thickly, appallingly.

“But——­” cried Conroy.  The match-flame stung his fingers and he dropped it.  “Oh Lord!” he said.  It occurred to him then, for the first time, that the mate was dead.

The men aft, bunched up under the break of the poop, were aware of him as a figure that came sliding and tottering toward them and fell sprawling at the foot of the poop ladder.  He floundered up and clutched the nearest of them, the Greek.

“The mate’s dead,” he broke out, in a kind of breathless squeal.  “Somebody call the captain; the mate’s dead.”

There was a moment of silence; then a cackle of words from several of them together.  The Greek’s hands on his shoulders tightened.  He heard the man’s purring voice in his ear.

“How did you do it?”

Conroy thrust himself loose; the skies of his mind were split by a frightful lightning flash of understanding.  He had been alone with the mate; he had seen him die; he was sworn to kill him.  He could see the livid smile of the Greek bent upon him.

“I didn’t do it,” he choked passionately, and struck with a wild, feeble hand at the smile.  “You liar—­I didn’t do it.”

“Hush!” The Greek caught him again and held him.

Some of the men had started forward; others had slipped into the alleyway to rouse the second mate and captain.  The Greek had him clutched to his bosom in a strong embrace and was hushing him as one might hush a scared child.  Slade was at his side.