in the Turner line, met him at the rail, and conducted him, with a
sort of chastened affability, to the cabin.

Exhausted from lack of sleep, terrified with what had gone by and
what was yet to come, unshaven and unkempt, the men gathered on the
forecastle-head and waited.

The conference below lasted perhaps an hour. At the end of that
time the quarantine officer came up and shouted a direction from
below, as a result of which the jolly-boat was cut loose, and,
towed by the tug, taken to the quarantine station. There was an
argument, I believe, between Turner and the officer, as to allowing
us to proceed up the river without waiting for the police. Turner
prevailed, however, and, from the time we hoisted the yellow flag,
we were on our way to the city, a tug panting beside us, urging
the broad and comfortable lines of the old cargo boat to a
semblance of speed.

The quarantine officer, a dapper little man, remained on the boat,
and busied himself officiously, getting the names of the men, peering
at Singleton through his barred window, and expressing disappointment
at my lack of foresight in having the bloodstains cleared away.

"Every stain is a clue, my man, to the trained eye," he chirruped.
"With an axe, too! What a brutal method! Brutal! Where is the axe?"

"Gone," I said patiently. "It was stolen out of the captain's cabin."

He eyed me over his glasses.