The After House

The night passed without incident, except for one thing that we were

unable to verify. At six bells, during the darkest hour of the night

that precedes the early dawn of summer, Adams, from the crow's-nest,

called down, in a panic, that there was something crawling on all

fours on the deck below him.

Burns, on watch at the companionway, ran forward with his revolver,

and narrowly escaped being brained--Adams at that moment flinging

down a marlinespike that he had carried aloft with him.

I heard the crash and joined Burns, and together we went over the

deck and, both houses. Everything was quiet: the crew in various

attitudes of exhausted sleep, their chests and dittybags around

them; Oleson at the wheel; and Singleton in his jail-room, breathing

heavily.

Adams's nerve was completely gone, and, being now thoroughly awake,

I joined him in the crow's-nest. Nothing could convince him that

he had been the victim of a nervous hallucination. He stuck to his

story firmly.

"It was on the forecastle-head first," he maintained. "I saw it

gleaming."

"Gleaming?"

"Sort of shining," he explained. "It came up over the rail, and

at first it stood up tall, like a white post."

"You didn't say before that it was white."

"It was shining," he said slowly, trying to put his idea into

words. "Maybe not exactly white, but light-colored. It stood

still for so long, I thought I must be mistaken--that it was a

light on the rigging. Then I got to thinking that there wasn't

no place for a light to come from just there."

That was true enough.

"First it was as tall as a man, or taller maybe," he went on.

"Then it seemed about half that high and still in the same place.

Then it got lower still, and it took to crawling along on its

belly. It was then I yelled."

I looked down. The green starboard light threw a light over

only a small part of the deck. The red light did no better. The

masthead was possibly thirty feet above the hull, and served no

illuminating purpose whatever. From the bridge forward the deck

was practically dark.

"You yelled, and then what happened?"

His reply was vague--troubled.

"I'm not sure," he said slowly. "It seemed to fade away. The white

got smaller--went to nothing, like a cloud blown away in a gale.

I flung the spike."

I accepted the story with outward belief and a mental reservation.

But I did not relish the idea of the spike Adams had thrown lying

below on deck. No more formidable weapon short of an axe, could be

devised. I said as much.

"I'm going down for it," I said; "if you're nervous, you'd better

keep it by you. But don't drop it on everything that moves below.

You almost got Burns."