Peter tried this over to himself with considerable satisfaction. He possessed a remarkably sweet tenor and pleasurably anticipated singing his ditty to its hero, and doubtless getting a cushion pitched at his head for his pains. But it happened that Varney was to go to his grave without ever hearing that small chanson. He came on deck again in five minutes with a face which drove all thoughts of melody from Peter's head. In fact, at sight of it, he came instantly to a sitting position and his guitar slid unheeded to the floor. "What's happened?" Varney did not answer immediately. He stood at the rail and stared into the woods with fixed eyes which saw nothing. Peter rose and came towards him. "Out with it!" he said encouragingly. "I'm full partner here. You want to murder somebody. Well and good! Now who is it?" Varney turned towards him, half-reluctantly, and spoke in a quiet voice. "I told you just now that the machinery broke down. I was mistaken. It was broken down." "_Broken down?_" "When I went below," continued the younger man, "it occurred to me to look in the engine-room and see how bad the damage was. It was very bad indeed. I'm no mechanic, Lord knows, but a child could make no mistake here. The effect is about as if somebody had jammed a crowbar in the works while she was running full-tilt. Probably that is just what somebody did. It'll be some days before she'll run again." Peter's bewilderment deepened. "What in the world does this mean?" "Treachery," said Varney calmly. "Somebody on board has been bought." The two men stared at each other. Varney read on Peter's face the swift unfolding of precisely his own thought. He was rather surprised at Peter's quickness, in view of the fact that he knew nothing of the episode of the morning. "Yes," he said. "That's the man." He told concisely of Mr. Higginson's attempt to break up the lunch-party by keeping the guest of honor away. Peter's face, as he listened, underwent a curious change. It first slowly gained color, then slowly lost it; and all of it, from the top of his forehead to the end of his chin, seemed subtly to contract and tighten up. His comment at the end was: "Excuse me a minute." Upon which he vanished below to see with his own eyes and judge with his own brain. He was back in less than two minutes, with a tiny spot of red in the corner of his eye, and his manner unwontedly calm. "You're right. Pretty clumsy treachery that," he said, standing and staring at Varney, who had dropped into a chair. "What was the man thinking about to ... I don't begin to see bottom on this." Varney's eyes were on the sailing-master, who sat far forward, feet on the rail, apparently engrossed in a magazine. The young man had just recalled the master's curious manner when he notified him of the accident to the machinery. "Larry--you meant to turn around anyway?" "But Higginson, you see, couldn't predict that." "The immediate cause of your turning--"