'Tranter was the captain of the boat,' said Dunbar, 'and Tranter was about the worst sort of coward you are likely to meet on this side of Jordan. E. W. Smith, on the other hand, never lost his head.' The story seemed finished, and Toffy got up and stretched himself lazily, and said he was going to turn in; but Peter still sat where he was in his deck-chair. 'There might be a hundred different endings to your tale, Dunbar,' he said, 'each one as likely as the other. The boat, for instance, might have capsized, with too many men crowded into her, and have drifted ashore and been burned accidentally or otherwise by the people who found her. Or the crew and captain of the _Rosana_ may never have taken to the boat at all, and she may have foundered with all hands (as you say the newspaper reports had it at the time); or the _Rosana_ may be sailing in another part of the world with her villainous captain and E. W. Smith and no end of swag on board. Or both men, again, may be sleeping very peacefully at the bottom of the sea at this moment; that, after all, seems to me the most likely ending to them. Of course,' he finished, 'I don't know what grounds you may have for making another suggestion about their probable fate.' Dunbar looked at him keenly for a moment. 'I would not have made the suggestion,' he said quietly, 'only, you see, since the wreck of the _Rosana_ I have seen E. W. Smith or his ghost, and that is why I do not believe in the final disappearance of a man till I have set eyes upon his corpse.' CHAPTER XII Peter sat on a cow's skull, bleached and white, at the Estancia Las Lomas, reading a letter from Jane Erskine. He had begun to think that the Royal Mail Steam Packet Service was run for the sole purpose of carrying correspondence between himself and her, and he felt pleased with its punctuality in delivering his letters.