"Yes, gentlemen, that's what I do mean to say," growled the captain. "He came aboard right enough, and went below. Nobody saw him come up again, and there's his bed all tumbled like. But he must have come up again and fallen overboard, for he isn't here now; and as soon as we found it out I give the order to drop anchor, and here we are." "But how did you happen to find it out?" said Sir Humphrey. "Tell him, Dick," said the captain. The first mate shrugged his shoulders, and said gloomily: "It was like this, gen'lemen. The skipper said one thing, but I says to myself another. `Jem Lynton's no business to go off ashore the night we're going to sail,' I says, `and I shan't go on doing his work and leaving him sleeping below there like a pig.' So I waited till the skipper was busy forward talking to the look-out, and then I slips down below to get hold of poor old Jem by the hind leg and drop him on the floor." "Yes?" said Brace, for the mate stopped. "Well, sir, I goes to the side of his berth, holds out my right hand-- nay, I won't swear it was my right hand, because it might have been my left; but whichever it was, it stood out quite stiff, and me with it, for there was no Jem Lynton there: only the blanket pulled out like, and half of it on the floor." "One moment," said Sir Humphrey. "The second mate slept in your cabin?" "Yes, sir. I see what you mean. Did I see him? Yes, I did, fast asleep and snoring, with his back to me." "And when you went down again he was not there?" "That's it, gentlemen," said the captain, breaking in; "and he's not aboard now. There's only one way o' looking at it: the poor fellow must have been took bad in the night, got up and gone on deck, and fell overboard." "Horrible!" exclaimed Brace. "That's right, sir. Soon as Richard Dellow here found it out he come up to me on deck and give me a horrid turn. `Poor Jem's drowned,' he says, `for he aren't down below.'" "But have you thoroughly searched the vessel?" cried Brace. "Searched, squire?" replied the captain. "Where is there to search? He wasn't here, and as soon as I could think a bit I let go the anchor, for we must go back to Johnstown and give notice, so that an enquiry can be made. Not that there's anything to enquire about, for it's all as plain as a pikestaff. I don't know what I could be thinking about to let him go, when he ought to have been aboard at his work; but I didn't want to be hard. There, you know all we know, gen'lemen, and as soon as the tide begins to make we must run back to port, for we can't do anything more till that bit o' business is settled."