The After House

The contents of the boat revealed the truth of what I had said.

The boat was in confusion. Its cover had been thrown back, and tins

of biscuit, bailers, boathooks and extra rowlocks were jumbled

together in confusion. The barecas lay on its side, and its plug

had been either knocked or drawn out.

McWhirter was for turning to inspect the boat; but I ordered him

sternly to watch the deck. He was inclined to laugh at my caution,

which he claimed was a quality in me he had not suspected. He

lounged against the rail near me, and, in spite of his chaff, kept

a keen enough lookout.

The barecas of water were lashed amidships. In the bow and stern

were small air-tight compartments, and in the stern was also a

small locker from which the biscuit tins had been taken. I was

about to abandon my search, when I saw something gleaming in the

locker, and reached in and drew it out. It appeared to be an

ordinary white sheet, but its presence there was curious. I turned

the light on it. It was covered with dark-brown stains.

Even now the memory of that sheet turns me ill. I shook it out,

and Mac, at my exclamation, came to me. It was not a sheet at all,

that is, not a whole one. It was a circular piece of white cloth,

on which, in black, were curious marks--a six-pointed star

predominating. There were others--a crescent, a crude attempt to

draw what might be either a dog or a lamb, and a cross. From edge

to edge it was smeared with blood.

Of what followed just after, both McWhirter and I are vague. There

seemed to be, simultaneously, a yell of fury from the rigging

overhead, and the crash of a falling body on the deck near us. Then

we were closing with a kicking, biting, screaming thing, that bore

me to the ground, extinguishing the little electric flash, and that,

rising suddenly from under me, had McWhirter in the air, and almost

overboard before I caught him. So dazed were we by the onslaught

that the thing--whatever it was--could have escaped, and left us

none the wiser. But, although it eluded us in the darkness, it did

not leave. It was there, whimpering to itself, searching for

something--the sheet. As I steadied Mac, it passed me. I caught

at it. Immediately the struggle began all over again. But this

time we had the advantage, and kept it. After a battle that seemed

to last all night, and that was actually fought all over that part

of the deck, we held the creature subdued, and Mac, getting a hand

free, struck a match.

It was Charlie Jones.

That, after all, is the story. Jones was a madman, a homicidal

maniac of the worst type. Always a madman, the homicidal element

of his disease was recurrent and of a curious nature.