Again he did not say anything. He only frowned. And it was an angry
frown. I waited. Nothing more came.

"What's the matter? . . . Can't you tell after being nearly two years in
the ship?" I addressed him sharply.

He looked as startled for a moment as though he had discovered my
presence only that very moment. But this passed off almost at once. He
put on an air of indifference. But I suppose he thought it better to say
something. He said that a ship needed, just like a man, the chance to
show the best she could do, and that this ship had never had a chance
since he had been on board of her. Not that he could remember. The last
captain. . . . He paused.

"Has he been so very unlucky?" I asked with frank incredulity. Mr. Burns
turned his eyes away from me. No, the late captain was not an unlucky
man. One couldn't say that. But he had not seemed to want to make use of
his luck.

Mr. Burns--man of enigmatic moods--made this statement with an inanimate
face and staring wilfully at the rudder casing. The statement itself was
obscurely suggestive. I asked quietly:

"Where did he die?"

"In this saloon. Just where you are sitting now," answered Mr. Burns.

I repressed a silly impulse to jump up; but upon the whole I was
relieved to hear that he had not died in the bed which was now to be
mine. I pointed out to the chief mate that what I really wanted to know