her name. You can search me for all any I can recollect."

He thanked me with unwonted elaborateness for Force and Matter, of
which I knew he would never read a line, and felt his way to the
door. Here he hung on for a moment, as if struck by a new and most
accidental idea.

"Now it wasn't, by any chance, that he said eighteen years ago?" he
queried.

I shook my head.

"Eight years ago," I said. "That's the way I remember it, though why
I should remember it at all I don't know. But that is what he said,"
I went on with increasing confidence. "Eight years ago. I am sure
of it."

Mr. Pike looked at me ponderingly, and waited until the Elsinore had
fairly righted for an instant ere he took his departure down the
hall.

I think I have followed the working of his mind. I have long since
learned that his memory of ships, officers, cargoes, gales, and
disasters is remarkable. He is a veritable encyclopaedia of the sea.
Also, it is patent that he has equipped himself with Sidney Waltham's
history. As yet, he does not dream that Mr. Mellaire is Sidney
Waltham, and he is merely wondering if Mr. Mellaire was a ship-mate
of Sidney Waltham eighteen years ago in the ship lost off the Plate.

In the meantime, I shall never forgive Mr. Mellaire for this slip he