"Groaned out with fright, and nearly betrayed myself," continued Verena. "Papa stared at the curtains as if he thought they were alive, and then and there backed out of the room. Perhaps he feared a ghost was there. He was looking so strange, Coralie." "All your fault, child. Since the night you went away he has looked more like a maniac than a rational man, and acted like one. I have just said so to Johnny Ludlow." "Poor papa! I will be good and tractable as an angel now, and make it up to him. And--why, Coralie, here are visitors." We gazed in surprise. It is not usual to receive calls at bedtime. Ozias stood at the door showing in Captain Tanerton. Behind him was Alfred Saxby. The captain's manner was curious. No sooner did he set eyes on us than he started back, as if he thought we might bite him. "Not here. Not the ladies. I told you it was Sir Dace I wanted," he said in quick sentences to Ozias. "Sir Dace alone." Ozias went back down the stairs, and they after him, and were shown into the library. It was a little room nearly opposite the front-entrance, and underneath the room called the boudoir. You went down a few stairs to it. Verena turned white. A prevision of evil seized her. "Something must be the matter," she shivered, laying her hand upon my arm. "Did you notice Captain Tanerton's face? I never saw him look like that. And what does he do here? Where is the ship? And oh, Johnny"--and her voice rose to a shriek--"where's Edward Pym?" Alas! we soon knew what the matter was--and where Edward Pym was. Dead. Murdered. That's what young Saxby called it. Sir Dace, looking frightfully scared, started with them down to Ship Street. I went also; I could not keep away. George was to sit up for me at home if I were late. "For," as Miss Deveen had said to me in the morning, laughingly, "there's no telling, Johnny, at what unearthly hour you may get back from Gravesend." IV. It was a dreadful thing to have happened. Edward Pym found dead; and no one could tell for a certainty who had been the author of the calamity. He had died of a blow dealt to him, the doctors said: it had struck him behind the left ear. Could it be possible that he had fallen of himself, and struck his head against something in falling, was a question put to the doctors--and it was Captain Tanerton who put it. It perhaps might be possible, the medical men answered, but not at all probable. Mr. Pym could not have inflicted the blow upon himself, and there was no piece of furniture in the room, so far as they saw, that could have caused the injury, even though he had fallen upon it. The good luck of the _Rose of Delhi_ seemed not to be in the ascendant. Her commander could not sail with her now. Neither could her newly-appointed third mate, Alfred Saxby. So far as might be ascertained at present, Captain Tanerton was the last man who had seen Pym alive; Alfred Saxby had found him dead; therefore their evidence would be required at the official investigation.