Page:Barbour--Joan of the ilsand.djvu/282

270 Then he leaned back and laughed, in an odd fashion, for there was little of mirth in his laughter.

"What on earth—" exclaimed Chester.

"There's—there's been a—a kind of a misunderstanding," said the man from the Four Winds, rising to his feet and casting a keen glance in the direction of Joan. There was something in his face that filled her with vague joy. For the first time since he had kissed her as they landed in the whale-boat the mask seemed to have been lifted from his face.

"It's tickling you. Tell us," Chester urged.

"Listen," replied Keith. "'The steamer Four Winds, which arrived at Sydney to-day, reports that her first mate, a man named Earle, disappeared in a mysterious fashion on the voyage. During his watch below, as the ship was passing through the Sulu Sea, he vanished, and no trace of him has since been found. The weather was calm which makes the affair more singular, since there was no possibility of his being washed overboard. It is supposed that he stumbled on the deck and fell over the rail. The officer of the watch, however, declares that he heard no cry. Captain Murdock, of the Four Winds, met with a serious accident the same night, falling in his cabin and sustaining a severe injury to his head, from which however, he is rapidly recovering. In view of the odd coincidence of the mate, having disappeared at the same time that the skip-