Chance

It was very still in there; still as death. Then he heard a shuffle of

feet and the captain's voice "All right. Coming." He leaned his back

against the bulkhead as you see a drunken man sometimes propped up

against a wall, half doubled up. In that attitude the captain found him,

when he came out, pulling the door to after him quickly. At once Anthony

let his eyes run all over the cabin. Powell, without a word, clutched

his forearm, led him round the end of the table and began to justify

himself. "I couldn't stop him," he whispered shakily. "He was too quick

for me. He drank it up and fell down." But the captain was not

listening. He was looking down at Mr. Smith, thinking perhaps that it

was a mere chance his own body was not lying there. They did not want to

speak. They made signs to each other with their eyes. The captain

grasped Powell's shoulder as if in a vice and glanced at Mrs. Anthony's

cabin door, and it was enough. He knew that the young man understood

him. Rather! Silence! Silence for ever about this. Their very glances

became stealthy. Powell looked from the body to the door of the dead

man's state-room. The captain nodded and let him go; and then Powell

crept over, hooked the door open and crept back with fearful glances

towards Mrs. Anthony's cabin. They stooped over the corpse. Captain

Anthony lifted up the shoulders.

Mr. Powell shuddered. "I'll never forget that interminable journey

across the saloon, step by step, holding our breath. For part of the way

the drawn half of the curtain concealed us from view had Mrs. Anthony

opened her door; but I didn't draw a free breath till after we laid the

body down on the swinging cot. The reflection of the saloon light left

most of the cabin in the shadow. Mr. Smith's rigid, extended body looked

shadowy too, shadowy and alive. You know he always carried himself as

stiff as a poker. We stood by the cot as though waiting for him to make

us a sign that he wanted to be left alone. The captain threw his arm

over my shoulder and said in my very ear: "The steward'll find him in the

morning."

"I made no answer. It was for him to say. It was perhaps the best way.

It's no use talking about my thoughts. They were not concerned with

myself, nor yet with that old man who terrified me more now than when he

was alive. Him whom I pitied was the captain. He whispered. "I am

certain of you, Mr. Powell. You had better go on deck now. As to me

. . . " and I saw him raise his hands to his head as if distracted. But his

last words before we stole out that cabin stick to my mind with the very

tone of his mutter--to himself, not to me: "No! No! I am not going to stumble now over that corpse."