THE BOAT ROCKS
And now a quick exhilaration seized Tom; the tempest was over. It was a
pity that Audry Ferris could not be there to feel the full force of his
breezy air of emancipation. To see him come swaggering up out of the
valley of the shadow. To take note of that careless, independent
whistling of a song, which seemed to proclaim to the world, “I should
worry.” But these things would keep. His spirit seemed likely to last a
day or two—oh, goodness, yes.
He was just going to celebrate his emancipation by getting up and
throwing those boisterous tin cans overboard when the boat lurched
enough to cause him to keep his seat. Just in that moment his
exhilaration was chilled by a blighting thought. If he did not tell,
perhaps Audry would. The secret was between these two.
Presently something happened which startled him. Simultaneously with a
lurch of the boat came a sound from within the cabin, a sound as of
someone falling. Then the sliding-door rolled slowly open. A can rolled
across the deck, making a clanking sound as it struck an iron cable
cleat.
In the dim light within the cabin, Tom could see a hand; it seemed very
white in the gathering darkness. It was on the floor and the arm
extended past the opening, so that all Tom could see was just this hand
and arm. It seemed to him as if the hand belonged to one crouching, and
who had cautiously rolled the door open for him to enter.
He went in, then paused aghast at what he saw. If the hand had started
the door, then it had been hospitably opened by a dead man. In the
lurching of the boat the figure, apparently, had rolled out of the
starboard bunk. It was in a sunken, half-sitting posture against the
bunk. The head hung sideways, the glazed eyes leering at Tom as in
ghastly welcome. He could not get it out of his startled senses that
this thing had gotten out of the bunk, pushed the door open, and sat
there on the floor in an affected attitude of subservient greeting. It
seemed to say, “Here I am at your feet; walk in, won’t you?”
Tom was startled, agitated. But he was not panic-stricken. He laid the
body decently upon the floor, crossways so it would not roll with the
rocking of the boat. It was the body of a man under middle age, partly
clothed. He had been for many days unshaven, and was in a pitiful state
of emaciation. Tom thought he had been dead for only a day or two. He
pulled some shreds of awning from across the port-holes, threw open the
heavy brass-bound glass disks, and let in the fresh evening air and such
light as the late twilight afforded.
He was too perturbed to see or think of anything outside the tragic
circumstance of death, but a hasty glance about the cabin showed all too
plainly that the boat had been the lonely refuge of this wretched, gaunt
creature for many days. Whether anybody knew of his refuge Tom could not
conjecture. He supposed that the owner was still abroad. No doubt the
dead man had been fully cognizant of the measure of safety he enjoyed.
Tom thought he might have died of consumption; he could not bear the
thought that he had died of starvation.
The walls of the cabin were very much besmeared with soot from a smelly,
filthy oil stove. There were a very few odds and ends of food. Fishing
tackle lay about and an old crab net. It was the lonely tenant of the
_Goodfellow_, and not boys, who had fished, probably in the shelter of
the darkness.
On the little table a few papers were in a pasteboard box. An empty
soup-can had been fastened to the slab by a tack driven through the
bottom. In this stood a fountain pen. A bottle of ink had slid off on
the floor. Among the papers was a queer pasteboard device, with a disk
that turned; it was some kind of an elaborate weather chart. There were
many clippings about the weather stuck on a nail in the bulkhead.
An unfinished manuscript of yellow paper was hanging in a large
fish-hook also fastened to the bulkhead. Tom glanced at this, read a few
lines, took it out into the better light of the cockpit and read more.
When it was too dark to see he tiptoed into the chamber of death and
sought amid the squalid disorder of alien paraphernalia for a lantern,
but could find none. Nor could he find any matches. He thought these
might be in the dead man’s pocket. He did not search for them. He folded
the loose pages, put them in his pocket, and tiptoed out into the
cockpit again. The moon was coming up full and glinting the water which
still rippled, sometimes into whitecaps, in the fresh breeze. The threat
of storm had passed. The night was clear and cool.
He rolled the little cabin door shut and fastened it. He picked up the
cans which were rolling and clanking about the deck and cast them in the
water. It was very still then. He could not remain here. Even the sound
of his own footfalls on the deck startled him. He tiptoed to the rail,
climbed over and into the little waiting, bobbing skiff, and rowed for
the shore. Once away from the boat he was glad for the companionable
clanking of the oar-locks; it was a good wholesome, cheery sound.
[Illustration: Tom rowed for the shore after finding the man’s body.]
The port-holes of the _Goodfellow_ were golden in the moonlight. The
sordid, makeshift camp in the cabin must be bathed in the moonlight now,
he thought. As he gazed back at the little cruiser it was hard to
believe that in her cosy cabin, death, solemn, unexplained, held her
solitary vigil.