"Because there's been strange doings these twenty-four hours parst, and I knew your affairs might be taking a serious turn. I thought you'd be wanting to know their play, 'stead of scaring 'em off. So I peeped and listened. With my eyes getting fair used to the dark I made out a dinghy with four men, and think they'd bent a line about our rudder post, for the for'ard man seemed to be working at us silent and farst. The middle one had the oars, ready to pull away. In the stern sheets sat the one I guessed was boss and, kind of squatting down in front of him, was a lad. To tell the truth, sir, I felt squirmy, for those night-hawks were up to something mysterious." "Wait a minute, Gates--did you recognize them?" "Not me, sir. As I was saying, the fellow aft now parssed up a bundle to the for'ard chap, who took it gingerly and began farstening it on to us somewhere--I couldn't see. The young lad leaned over and looked at it, then he up and sings out: 'It ain't fair!'" "Yes, yes," I caught him by the shoulders. "Go on, Gates!" "Mind out this thing under my coat," he warned. "Well, sir, the one that was boss made a grab for him--Lor', how he did jerk him!--and the others froze like stone. They stayed that way while you were calling, then the dinghy glided off--the one aft still holding his hand over the lad's mouth and kind of choking him with the other." My blood was fairly steaming, and I cried out what was uppermost in my mind: "That wasn't a lad, Gates! It was a girl!" His jaw dropped and he stared at me, but slowly shook his head. "No, sir, it warn't a girl, or the fellow wouldn't have handled her so rough. Besides, sir, he wore--the lad, I mean--a jacket and cap like you or me." "That doesn't mean anything. I tell you it was a girl--I'm sure of it!" "Well, sir, you're wrong; for when they got out five fathom or so they stopped--to listen, maybe. You were back in the cockpit by then, and I guess the fellow must have let up on the young-un; for, all at once, he--the lad, I mean--raked a match along the gunnel, for to take a smoke, d'you see! My word, but the way he was grabbed this time would have shocked you. I couldn't see it, but you could hear the youngster gurgling. That shows it warn't a girl, sir!" "What shows it? Because you think she wanted to smoke? Girls do, Gates!" "They do that, sir, and I'm not gainsaying it; but they do it sociable, arfter dinner, setting 'round the cockpit, as you might say. It's seldom any of 'em has such a mortal craving for tobacco as to have to take a suck at a little cigarette every time a man chokes her by the throat. My word, no! It's the male sex that wants the weed under those conditions--not a girl, sir!" But I was seeing an entirely different version of the affair, so far as the smoking went; and Gates would have seen it, too, if he hadn't been so excited. She had not wanted to smoke, at all, but to signal us! I knew it! I was never more sure of anything in all creation!