Jem Dadd got another man's body, as he
always said he would."
"Rot!" said Roberts, trying to speak bravely, but he got up, and, with
the others, huddled together at the end of the fo'c's'le, and stared in a
bewildered fashion at the sodden face and short, squat figure of our
visitor. For his part, having finished his meal, he pushed his plate
from him, and, leaning back on the locker, looked at the empty bunks.
Roberts caught his eye, and, with a nod and a wave of his hand, indicated
the bunks. The fellow rose from the locker, and, amid a breathless
silence, climbed into one of them--Jem Dadd's!
He slept in the dead sailor's bed that night, the only man in the
fo'c's'le who did sleep properly, and turned out heavily and lumpishly in
the morning for breakfast.
The skipper had him on deck after the meal, but could make nothing of
him. To all his questions he replied in the strange tongue of the night
before, and, though our fellows had been to many ports, and knew a word
or two of several languages, none of them recognized it.
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