‘The fellow Crabb feigned to be dead,’ he continued. ‘A sham it must have been, otherwise he wouldn’t be in irons yonder. Now, are we to believe that Hemmeridge can’t distinguish between death and life? He reports the man dead to the captain. The fellow is stitched up; but, as we have since ascertained, a prepared hammock is substituted for the one that conceals his remains, and we bury maybe some clump of wood. This is the part Captain Keeling least likes, I think. He is a pious old gentleman, and his horror when’---- He checked himself with a cough, and a sound on top of it like a smothered laugh, as though he enjoyed some fancy in his mind, but durst not be too candid, since it was the captain he talked about. ‘It is assumed,’ said I, ‘that Hemmeridge represented Crabb as dead knowing him to be alive?’ He nodded. ‘What will have been the project?’ I continued, shaping out the truth as, bit by bit, it formed itself in my head. ‘Robbery, of course. Ay, Mr. Prance, that will have been it. Crabb is to be smuggled into the hold, the notion throughout the ship being that he is dead and overboard; and when in the hold’---- I stopped. ‘Well,’ said he with a shrug of his shoulders, ‘there’s the mail-room. What else? With a parcel of diamonds in it worth seventy thousand pounds, not to speak of money, jewelry, and other precious matters.’ ‘By heavens! did any man ever hear the like of such a plot?’ cried I; ‘and Hemmeridge is suspected as a confederate?’ ‘We shall see, we shall see,’ he answered. ‘Just tell me this, Mr. Prance,’ I exclaimed, thirsty with curiosity, ‘who are the others involved? Somebody must have shifted Crabb’s remains.’ ‘The sailmaker is in irons,’ said he. ‘Yes! I might have sworn it! Why is it that the high Roman nose of that chap has haunted my recollection of the ghastly appearance Mr. Crabb presented at every recurrence of my mind to the loathsome picture?’ He slightly started, and I could see him eyeing me earnestly. ‘By the way,’ he exclaimed, ‘now that I think of it, Hemmeridge showed Crabb’s body to _you_, didn’t he?’ ‘Certainly he did,’ I responded. ‘Well, it will give the doctor a chance,’ said he, as though thinking aloud; and so saying he made some steps in the direction of the captain, and I went down on the quarter-deck to blow a cloud and muse upon the matters he had filled my mind with. END OF THE FIRST VOLUME _Spottiswoode & Co. Printers, New-street Square, London._ TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of My Shipmate Louise, Volume 1 (of 3), by William Clark Russell