“He slipped, I tell you; he slipped at the top of the ladder.  She’d shipped a dollop of water and then rolled, and over he went.  I heard his head go smack and went down to him.  I never touched him.  I swear it—­I never touched him.”

“Hush!” It was Slade this time.  “And yer sure he’s dead.  Well——­” the old man exchanged nods with the Greek.  “All right.  Only—­don’t tell the captain that tale; it ain’t good enough.”

“But——­” began Conroy.  A hug that crushed his face against the Greek’s oilskin breast silenced him.

“Vat is all dis?”

It was the captain, tall, august, come full-dressed from his cabin.  At his back the second mate, with his oilskin coat over his pajamas, thrust forward his red, cheerful face.

Slade told the matter briefly.  “And it’s scared young Conroy all to bits, sir,” he concluded.

“Come for’ard,” bade the captain.  “Get a lamp, some vun!”

They followed him along the wet, slippery deck slowly, letting him pass ahead out of earshot.

“It was a belayin’-pin, ye’es?” queried the Greek softly of Conroy.

“He might have hit his head against a pin,” replied Conroy.

“Eh?” The Greek stopped.  “Might ’ave—­might ’ave ’it ’is ’ead?  Ah, dat is fine!  ’E might ’ave ’it ’is ’ead, Slade!  You ’ear dat?”

“Yes, it ain’t bad!” replied Slade, and Conroy, staring in a wild attempt to see their faces clearly, realized that they were laughing, laughing silently and heartily.  With a gesture of despair he left them.

A globe-lamp under the forecastle head lighted the captain’s investigations, gleaming on wet oilskins, shadow-pitted faces, and the curious, remote thing that had been the mate of the Villingen.  Its ampler light revealed much that the match-flame had missed from its field—­the manner in which the sou’wester and the head it covered were caved in at one side, the cut in the sou’wester through which clotted hair protruded, the whole ghastliness of death that comes by violence.  With all that under his eyes, Conroy had to give his account of the affair, while the ring of silent, hard-breathing men watched him and marvelled at the clumsiness of his story.

“It is strange,” said the captain.  “Fell over backwards, you said.  It is very strange!  And vere did you find de body?”

The scupper and deck had been washed clean by successive seas; there was no trace there of blood, and none on the rail.  Even while they searched, water spouted down on them.  But what Conroy noted was that no pin stood in the rail where the mate had fallen, and the hole that might have held one was empty.

“Ah, veil!” said the captain at last.  “De poor fellow is dead.  I do not understand, quite, how he should fall like dat, but he is dead.  Four of you get de body aft.”

“Please, sir,” accosted Conroy, and the tall captain turned.

“Veil, vat is it?”

“Can I go below, sir?  It was me that found him, sir.  I feel rather—­ rather bad.”