Seth swallowed hard and continued. "Well, wherever she was bound," he
snapped. "Won't they learn that you sot sail in her and never got there?
Then they'll know that you MUST have fell overboard."

John Brown drew a mouthful of smoke through the stem of the pipe and
blew it spitefully among the mosquitoes.

"I don't see how they'll learn it," he replied.

"Why, the steamer folks'll wire em right off."

"They'll have to find them first."

"That'll be easy enough. There'll be your name, 'John Brown,' of such
and such a place, written right on the purser's book, won't it."

"No," drawled Mr. Brown, "it won't."

The lightkeeper felt very much as if this particular road to the truth
had ended suddenly in a blind alley. He pulled viciously at his chin
whiskers. His companion shifted his position on the bench. Silence fell
again, as much silence as the mosquitoes would permit.

Suddenly Brown seemed to reach a determination.

"Atkins," he said briskly, and with considerable bitterness in his tone,
"don't you worry about my people. They don't know where I am, and--well,
some of them, at least, don't care. Maybe I'm a rolling stone--at any
rate, I haven't gathered any moss, any financial moss. I'm broke. I