The gulls hovered around us with melancholy cries, as they wheeled in graceful circles and swooped down to their prey in the depths at our feet.

Presently he spoke again in a meditative, far-away voice-- "Ezekiel Trenoweth, fair, broad, and six foot two in his socks; why should anything have happened to him ?" "But you seem to know him, and know the ship he sailed in.

Tell me-- please tell me what has happened.

Did you sail in the same ship?
And, if so, what has become of it ?" "I sailed," said my companion, still examining the horizon, "from Ceylon on the 12th of July, in the ship _Mary Jane_, bound for Liverpool.

Consequently, if Ezekiel Trenoweth sailed in the _Belle Fortune_ we couldn't very well have been in the same ship, and that's logic," said he, turning to me for the first time with a watery and uncertain smile, but quickly withdrawing his eyes to their old occupation.
But he had lifted a great load from my heart, so that for very joy at knowing my father was not among the crew of the _Mary Jane_ I could not speak for a time, but sat watching his face, and thinking how I should question him next.
"Sailed in the _Mary Jane_, bound for Liverpool," he repeated, his face twitching slightly, and his hands still plucking at his trousers, "sailed along with--never mind who.