“Such was practically the late captain’s last speech. No connected sentence passed his lips afterward. That night he used the last of his strength to throw his fiddle over the side. No one had actually seen him in the act, but after his death Mr. Burns couldn’t find the thing anywhere. The empty case was very much in evidence, but the fiddle was clearly not in the ship. And where else could it have gone to but overboard?”

“Threw his violin overboard!” I exclaimed.

“He did,” cried Mr. Burns excitedly. “And it’s my belief he would have tried to take the ship down with him if it had been in human power. He never meant her to see home again. He wouldn’t write to his owners, he never wrote to his old wife, either⁠—he wasn’t going to. He had made up his mind to cut adrift from everything. That’s what it was. He didn’t care for business, or freights, or for making a passage⁠—or anything. He meant to have gone wandering about the world till he lost her with all hands.”