The Maltese Cockney it
was who first sighted the man and called down the information. The
mate, looking to windwards, suddenly lowered his glasses, rubbed his
eyes in a puzzled way, and looked again. Then Miss West, using
another pair of glasses, cried out in surprise and began to laugh.
"What do you make of it, Miss West?" the mate asked.
"He doesn't seem to be in the water. He's standing up."
Mr. Pike nodded.
"He's on the ladder," he said. "I'd forgotten that. It fooled me at
first. I couldn't understand it." He turned to the second mate.
"Mr. Mellaire, will you launch the long boat and get some kind of a
crew into it while I back the main-yard? I'll go in the boat. Pick
men that can pull an oar."
"You go, too," Miss West said to me. "It will be an opportunity to
get outside the Elsinore and see her under full sail."
Mr. Pike nodded consent, so I went along, sitting near him in the
stern-sheets where he steered, while half a dozen hands rowed us
toward the suicide, who stood so weirdly upon the surface of the sea.
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