"Quite right, miss, Tribett was the name. And the first mate's name was Green, and the second's Gull, and the third--ah! he were Captain Tribett's son,--same name of course. Well, blow me if this ain't wot the Italians calls a cohincidence." He was as pleased as she, and stood grinning on her. "Mr. Royle," she exclaimed, raising her fine eyes to mine, "surely there must be others like the boatswain in this ship. They cannot all be after the pattern of that horrible carpenter!" "We ought to be able to find that out, bos'un," I said. "Look here, miss," he answered, with a glance first at the men forward and then at Fish at the wheel, "the circumstances of this here affair is just this: the crew have been very badly treated, fed with rotten stores, and starved and abused by the skipper and chief mate until they went mad. I don't think myself that they meant to kill the captain and Mr. Duckling; but it happened, and no man barrin' Stevens was guiltier than his mate, and that's where it is. The carpenter knocked the skipper down, and others kicked him when he was down, not knowing he was dead; and four or five set on Mr. Duckling, and so you see it's a sin as they all share alike in. If one man had killed the skipper, and another man had killed the chief mate, why then so be, miss, the others might be got to turn upon 'em to save their own necks. But here it's all hands as did the job. And the only man who kept away, though I pretended to be one with 'em hearty enough, was me; and wot's the consequince. Stevens don't trust me; and I'm sartin in my own mind that he don't mean to let me into the boats when the time comes, any more than you." So saying, he deliberately walked aft, looked at the compass, then at the sails, and patrolled the poop for several minutes, for the very obvious reason that the men should not take notice of our talking long and close together. Presently he rejoined us, standing a little distance away, and in a careless attitude. "Bo'sun," said I, addressing him with my eyes on the deck, so that from a distance I would not appear to be speaking, "Miss Robertson told Stevens that her father would handsomely reward every man on board this ship on her arrival in port. He asked her what her father would give, and she said a hundred pounds to each man. If this were repeated to the crew, what effect would it produce?" "They wouldn't believe it." "My father would give each man a promise in writing," she exclaimed. "They wouldn't trust him," said the boatswain, without reflecting. "They'd think it a roose to bring 'em together to give 'em into custody. If I was one of them that's what I should think, and you may be sure I'm right." "But he would give them written orders on his bankers; they could not think it a ruse," she said eagerly, evidently enamoured of her own idea, since she saw that I entertained it.