The After House

The door was locked on the outside.

I was a moment or two in grasping the fact. I shook it carefully

to see if it had merely caught, and then, incredulous, I put my

weight to it. It refused to yield. The silence outside was absolute.

I felt my way back to the window. It was open, but was barred with

iron, and, even without that, too small for my shoulders. I listened

for the mate. It was still dark, and so not yet time for the watch to

change. Singleton would be on duty, and he rarely came aft. There

was no sound of footsteps.

I lit a match and examined the lock. It was a simple one, and as my

idea now was to free myself without raising an alarm, I decided to

unscrew it with my pocket-knife. I was still confused, but inclined

to consider my imprisonment a jest, perhaps on the part of Charlie

Jones, who tempered his religious fervor with a fondness for practical

joking.

I accordingly knelt in front of the lock and opened my knife. I was

in darkness and working by touch. I had extracted one screw, and,

with a growing sense of satisfaction, was putting it in my pocket

before loosening a second, when a board on which I knelt moved under

my knee, lifted, as if the other end, beyond the door, had been

stepped on. There was no sound, no creak. Merely that ominous

lifting under my knee. There was some one just beyond the door.

A moment later the pressure was released. With a growing horror of

I know not what, I set to work at the second screw, trying to be

noiseless, but with hands shaking with excitement. The screw fell

out into my palm. In my haste I dropped my knife, and had to grope

for it on the floor. It was then that a woman screamed--a low,

sobbing cry, broken off almost before it began. I had got my knife

by that time, and in desperation I threw myself against the door.

It gave way, and I fell full length on the main cabin floor. I was

still in darkness. The silence in the cabin was absolute. I could

hear the steersman beyond the chart-room scratching a match.

As I got up, six bells struck. It was three o'clock.

Vail's room was next to the pantry, and forward. I felt my way to

it, and rapped.

"Vail," I called. "Vail!"

His door was open an inch or so. I went in and felt my way to his

bunk. I could hear him breathing, a stertorous respiration like

that of sleep, and yet unlike. The moment I touched him, the sound

ceased, and did not commence again. I struck a match and bent over

him.