Even in my fright I can remember being struck with this strange way of speaking, as though my father were a dog; but a new fear had gained possession of me. Dreading to hear the answer, yet wildly anxious, I cried-- "Oh, yes. Do you know him? He was coming home from Ceylon, and mother was so anxious; and then, what with the storm last night and the cry that we heard, we were so frightened! Oh! do you know --do you think--" My words died away in terrified entreaty; but he seemed not to hear me. Still gazing out on the sea, he said-- "Sailed in the _Belle Fortune_, barque of 600 tons, or thereabouts, bound for Port of Bristol? Oh, ay, I knew him--knew him well. And might this here place be Lantrig?" "Our house is on the cliff above the next cove," I replied. "But, oh! please tell me if anything has happened to him!" "And why should anything have happened to Ezekiel Trenoweth? That's what I want to know. Why should anything have happened to him?" He was still watching the waves as they danced and twinkled in the sun. He never looked towards me, but plucked with nervous fingers at his torn trousers. The gulls hovered around us with melancholy cries, as they wheeled in graceful circles and swooped down to their prey in the depths at our feet. Presently he spoke again in a meditative, far-away voice-- "Ezekiel Trenoweth, fair, broad, and six foot two in his socks; why should anything have happened to him?" "But you seem to know him, and know the ship he sailed in. Tell me-- please tell me what has happened. Did you sail in the same ship? And, if so, what has become of it?" "I sailed," said my companion, still examining the horizon, "from Ceylon on the 12th of July, in the ship _Mary Jane_, bound for Liverpool. Consequently, if Ezekiel Trenoweth sailed in the _Belle Fortune_ we couldn't very well have been in the same ship, and that's logic," said he, turning to me for the first time with a watery and uncertain smile, but quickly withdrawing his eyes to their old occupation. But he had lifted a great load from my heart, so that for very joy at knowing my father was not among the crew of the _Mary Jane_ I could not speak for a time, but sat watching his face, and thinking how I should question him next. "Sailed in the _Mary Jane_, bound for Liverpool," he repeated, his face twitching slightly, and his hands still plucking at his trousers, "sailed along with--never mind who. And this boy's Ezekiel Trenoweth's son, and I knew him; knew him well." His voice was husky, and he seemed to have something in his throat, but he went on: "Well, it's a strange world. To think of him being dead!" looking at the cap--which he had taken off his head. "What! Father dead?"