CHAPTER XXIV

The voyage is doomed to disaster and death. I know Mr. Pike, now, and if ever he discovers the identity of Mr. Mellaire, murder will be done. Mr. Mellaire is not Mr. Mellaire. He is not from Georgia. He is from Virginia. His name is Waltham--Sidney Waltham. He is one of the Walthams of Virginia, a black sheep, true, but a Waltham. Of this I am convinced, just as utterly as I am convinced that Mr. Pike will kill him if he learns who he is.

Let me tell how I have discovered all this. It was last night, shortly before midnight, when I came up on the poop to enjoy a whiff of the south- east trades in which we are now bowling along, close-hauled in order to weather Cape San Roque. Mr. Pike had the watch, and I paced up and down with him while he told me old pages of his life. He has often done this, when not "sea-grouched," and often he has mentioned with pride--yes, with reverence--a master with whom he sailed five years. "Old Captain Somers," he called him--"the finest, squarest, noblest man I ever sailed under, sir."

Well, last night our talk turned on lugubrious subjects, and Mr. Pike, wicked old man that he is, descanted on the wickedness of the world and on the wickedness of the man who had murdered Captain Somers.

"He was an old man, over seventy years old," Mr. Pike went on. "And they say he'd got a touch of palsy--I hadn't seen him for years. You see, I'd had to clear out from the coast because of trouble. And that devil of a second mate caught him in bed late at night and beat him to death. It was terrible. They told me about it. Right in San Francisco, on board the _Jason Harrison_, it happened, eleven years ago.

Answer this series of questions:

1. Is the voyage doomed?
2. To how many things?
3. What is the first mentioned?
4. And the second?
5. Whose identity is hidden?
6. What is his alias?
7. Is he from Maine?
8. What state then?
9. What crime will happen if his identity is revealed?
10. Who will kill him?
11. Was Pike described as old?
12. How old?
13. What sort of ailment did he have?
14. How long ago did something happen on the Jason Harrison?
15. What chapter is this from?
16. Who had the watch?
17. Who was the master he sailed with some time ago?
18. How many years ago?
19. What adjectives were used to describe Somers?
20. Where had Pike had to clear out from?
1. yes
2. Two
3. disaster
4. death
5. Sidney Waltham
6. Mr. Mellaire
7. no
8. Virginia
9. murder
10. Mr. Pike
11. yes
12. over seventy
13. palsy
14. eleven years ago
15. XXIV
16. Mr. Pike
17. Old Captain Somers
18. eleven years ago
19. finest, squarest, noblest
20. the coast