Accident o course!--Next day common seaman hung in his own braces
Jevington Holt. Suicide o course! And so it's been going on ever
since--blockade-men murdered; blockade-men missin; blockade-men washed
ashore--until last night."
"What then?"
"Ain't you heard, sir?" aghast. "Last night--eleven o'clock--full
moon--clear as crystal--Diamond laid the _Kite_ aboard the Revenue
cutter off Darby's Hole."
"Well?" breathlessly.
"Ah, well indeed, sir!--No one'll ever knaw the rights o that yarn.
Only one chap o the crew o the _Curlew_ left alive to tell the
tale--poor Alf Huggett here alongside o me. Stove in a water-butt and
hid in it--didn't you, Alf?"
There was a waiting silence.
"It's broke him up surely, sir," whispered Reuben. "And I don't wonder.
Saw enough through that bung-hole to keep him thinking for the rest
of his life."
"Fat George!" shivered a thin voice. "Fat George!"
"Ah!" came the windy chorus. "Him and old Toadie!"
"Anyways there it be!" continued Reuben. "At noon to-day the _Curlew_
drifted up against Seaford jetty, yards hung with her own crew, like
carcasses in a butcher's shop."
"Brutes!" gasped the boy. "But what's the meaning of it all?"
Reuben shrugged till his oil-skins crackled.
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