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“We shall see,” said Captain Winterton, when he had listened to all of the tale that he would hear. He turned about. ‘‘Boy,” he cried, ‘‘go speedily and send Mr. Rance in to me.”

The boy departed in haste and in a moment there entered a junior officer, who stared in frank curiosity at the three in the cabin.

“Mr. Rance,” said the captain, “go aloft in person to the main truck and look about you sharply. Come back and report what you see.”

“Yea, yea, sir,” the young man replied, and with that he was gone.

The captain stood by the cabin window and frowned. Plainly he had small confidence in the good faith of the prisoner and regarded his story as at best an attempt to save himself at the expense of his friends. The gentleman of the humours, somewhat sobered by the captain’s manner of grave concern, returned to his desk, but sat tapping his fingers and watching Philip Marsham.

It had instantly, of course, dawned upon the runaway boatswain that his peril was more serious than he had had reason earlier to believe. For supposing the unknown sail should in all truth be the Rose of Devon, — and since she was cruising idly thereabouts nothing was more probable, — he stood between the Devil, or at all events the Devil’s own emissary, Thomas Jordan,