the long (or vertical) part of the letter. It contained some lockers
surmounted by a bookcase; and a few clothes, a thick jacket or two,
caps, oilskin coat, and such like, hung on hooks. There was at the
bottom of that part a door opening into my bathroom, which could be
entered also directly from the saloon. But that way was never used.

The mysterious arrival had discovered the advantage of this particular
shape. Entering my room, lighted strongly by a big bulkhead lamp swung
on gimbals above my writing desk, I did not see him anywhere till he
stepped out quietly from behind the coats hung in the recessed part.

"I heard somebody moving about, and went in there at once," he
whispered.

I, too, spoke under my breath.

"Nobody is likely to come in here without knocking and getting
permission."

He nodded. His face was thin and the sunburn faded, as though he had
been ill. And no wonder. He had been, I heard presently, kept under
arrest in his cabin for nearly seven weeks. But there was nothing sickly
in his eyes or in his expression. He was not a bit like me, really; yet,
as we stood leaning over my bed place, whispering side by side, with our
dark heads together and our backs to the door, anybody bold enough to
open it stealthily would have been treated to the uncanny sight of a
double captain busy talking in whispers with his other self.

"But all this doesn't tell me how you came to hang on to our side
ladder," I inquired, in the hardly audible murmurs we used, after he had