III

I rolled out on the deck and crossed over to where Hardenberg sat

huddled in his blankets.

"What the devil--" I began.

He jumped suddenly at the sound of my voice, then raised an arm and

pointed toward the top of the foremast.

"D'ye see it?" he muttered. "Say, huh? D'ye see it? I thought I saw it

last night, but I wasn't sure. But there's no mistake now. D'ye see it,

Mr. Dixon?"

I looked where he pointed. The schooner was riding easily to anchor, the

surface of the bay was calm, but overhead the high white sea-fog was

rolling in. Against it the foremast stood out like the hand of an

illuminated town clock, and not a detail of its rigging that was not as

distinct as if etched against the sky.

And yet I saw nothing.

"Where?" I demanded, and again and again "where?"

"In the crosstrees," whispered Hardenberg. "Ah, look there."

He was right. Something was stirring there, something that I had

mistaken for the furled tops'l. At first it was but a formless bundle,

but as Hardenberg spoke it stretched itself, it grew upright, it assumed

an erect attitude, it took the outlines of a human being. From head to

heel a casing housed it in, a casing that might have been anything at

that hour of the night and in that strange place--a shroud, if you like,

a winding-sheet--anything; and it is without shame that I confess to a

creep of the most disagreeable sensation I have ever known as I stood at

Hardenberg's side on that still, foggy night and watched the stirring of

that nameless, formless shape standing gaunt and tall and grisly and

wrapped in its winding-sheet upon the crosstrees of the foremast of the

_Idaho Lass_.

We watched and waited breathless for an instant. Then the creature on

the foremast laid a hand upon the lashings of the tops'l and undid them.

Then it turned, slid to the deck by I know not what strange process,

and, still hooded, still shrouded, still lapped about by its

mummy-wrappings, seized a rope's end. In an instant the jib was set and

stood on hard and billowing against the night wind. The tops'l followed.

Then the figure moved forward and passed behind the companionway of the

fo'c's'le.

We looked for it to appear upon the other side, but looked in vain. We

saw it no more that night.

What Hardenberg and I told each other between the time of the

disappearing and the hour of breakfast I am now ashamed to recall. But

at last we agreed to say nothing to the others--for the time being. Just

after breakfast, however, we two had a few words by the wheel on the

quarterdeck. Ally Bazan and Strokher were forward.

"The proper thing to do," said I--it was a glorious, exhilarating

morning, and the sunlight was flooding every angle and corner of the

schooner--"the proper thing to do is to sleep on deck by the foremast

to-night with our pistols handy and interview the--party if it walks

again."

"Oh, yes," cried Hardenberg heartily. "Oh, yes; that's the proper thing.

Of course it is. No manner o' doubt about that, Mr. Dixon. Watch for the

party--yes, with pistols. Of course it's the proper thing. But I know

one man that ain't going to do no such thing."

"Well," I remember to have said reflectively, "well--I guess I know

another."

But for all our resolutions to say nothing to the others about the

night's occurrences, we forgot that the tops'l and jib were both set and

both drawing.

"An' w'at might be the bloomin' notion o' setting the bloomin' kite and

jib?" demanded Ally Bazan not half an hour after breakfast. Shamelessly

Hardenberg, at a loss for an answer, feigned an interest in the grummets

of the life-boat cover and left me to lie as best I might.

But it is not easy to explain why one should raise the sails of an

anchored ship during the night, and Ally Bazan grew very suspicious.

Strokher, too, had something to say, and in the end the whole matter

came out.

Trust a sailor to give full value to anything savouring of the

supernatural. Strokher promptly voted the ship a "queer old hooker

anyhow, and about as seaworthy as a hen-coop." He held forth at great

length upon the subject.

"You mark my words, now," he said. "There's been some fishy doin's in

this 'ere vessel, and it's like somebody done to death crool hard, an'

'e wants to git away from the smell o' land, just like them as is killed

on blue water. That's w'y 'e takes an' sets the sails between dark an'

dawn."

But Ally Bazan was thoroughly and wholly upset, so much so that at first

he could not speak. He went pale and paler while we stood talking it

over, and crossed himself--he was a Catholic--furtively behind the

water-butt.

"I ain't never 'a' been keen on ha'nts anyhow, Mr. Dixon," he told me

aggrievedly at dinner that evening. "I got no use for 'em. I ain't never

known any good to come o' anything with a ha'nt tagged to it, an' we're

makin' a ill beginnin' o' this island business, Mr. Dixon--a blyme ill

beginnin'. I mean to stye awyke to-night."

But if he was awake the little colonial was keeping close to his bunk at

the time when Strokher and Hardenberg woke me at about three in the

morning.

I rolled out and joined them on the quarterdeck and stood beside them

watching. The same figure again towered, as before, gray and ominous in

the crosstrees. As before, it set the tops'l; as before, it came down to

the deck and raised the jib; as before, it passed out of sight amid the

confusion of the forward deck.

But this time we all ran toward where we last had seen it, stumbling

over the encumbered decks, jostling and tripping, but keeping

wonderfully close together. It was not twenty seconds from the time the

creature had disappeared before we stood panting upon the exact spot we

had last seen it. We searched every corner of the forward deck in vain.

We looked over the side. The moon was up. This night there was no fog.

We could see for miles each side of us, but never a trace of a boat was

visible, and it was impossible that any swimmer could have escaped the

merciless scrutiny to which we subjected the waters of the bay in every

direction.

Hardenberg and I dived down into the fo'c's'le. Ally Bazan was sound

asleep in his bunk and woke stammering, blinking and bewildered by the

lantern we carried.

"I sye," he cried, all at once scrambling up and clawing at our arms,

"D'd the bally ha'nt show up agyne?" And as we nodded he went on more

aggrievedly than ever--"Oh, I sye, y' know, I daon't like this. I eyen't

shipping in no bloomin' 'ooker wot carries a ha'nt for supercargo. They

waon't no good come o' this cruise--no, they waon't. It's a sign, that's

wot it is. I eyen't goin' to buck again no signs--it eyen't human

nature, no it eyen't. You mark my words, 'Bud' Hardenberg, we clear this

port with a ship wot has a ha'nt an' we waon't never come back agyne, my

hearty."

That night he berthed aft with us on the quarterdeck, but though we

stood watch and watch till well into the dawn, nothing stirred about the

foremast. So it was the next night, and so the night after that. When

three successive days had passed without any manifestation the keen edge

of the business became a little blunted and we declared that an end had

been made.

Ally Bazan returned to his bunk in the fo'c's'le on the fourth night,

and the rest of us slept the hours through unconcernedly.

But in the morning there were the jib and tops'l set and drawing as

before.