For some while I digested my discovery in private, reflecting how best, and how with most of drama, I might share it with the captain. Then my sketch-book came in my head, and I fished it out from where it lay, with other miscellaneous possessions, at the foot of my bunk, and turned to my sketch of Captain Trent and the survivors of the British brig _Flying Scud_ in the San Francisco bar-room. "Nares," said I, "I've told you how I first saw Captain Trent in that saloon in 'Frisco? how he came with his men, one of them a Kanaka with a canary-bird in a cage? and how I saw him afterwards at the auction, frightened to death, and as much surprised at how the figures skipped up as anybody there. Well," said I, "there's the man I saw"--and I laid the sketch before him--"there's Trent of 'Frisco and there are his three hands. Find one of them in the photograph, and I'll be obliged." Nares compared the two in silence. "Well," he said at last, "I call this rather a relief: seems to clear the horizon. We might have guessed at something of the kind from the double ration of chests that figured." "Does it explain anything?" I asked. "It would explain everything," Nares replied, "but for the steam-crusher. It'll all tally as neat as a patent puzzle, if you leave out the way these people bid the wreck up. And there we come to a stone wall. But whatever it is, Mr. Dodd, it's on the crook." "And looks like piracy," I added. "Looks like blind hookey!" cried the captain. "No, don't you deceive yourself; neither your head nor mine is big enough to put a name on this business." CHAPTER XV THE CARGO OF THE _FLYING SCUD_