It was at this moment too that he saw one of the men around the boat step backwards suddenly, clutch at the air with raised arms, totter and collapse.

He didn't exactly fall, he only slid gently into a sitting posture, all hunched up, and with his shoulders propped against the side of the engine-room skylight.

"That was the donkey-man.
A haggard, white-faced chap with a ragged moustache.

Acted third engineer," he explained.
'"Dead," I said.

We had heard something of that in court.
'"So they say," he pronounced with sombre indifference.