began to feel funny
inside. I went over the decks and the rails and the house itself--inch
by inch. Not a trace. I went out aft again. The cat sat on the
wheel-box, washing her face. I hadn't noticed the scar on her head
before, running down between her ears--rather a new scar--three or four
days old, I should say. It looked ghastly and blue-white in the flat
moonlight. I ran over and grabbed her up to heave her over the side--you
understand how upset I was. Now you know a cat will squirm around and
grab something when you hold it like that, generally speaking. This one
didn't. She just drooped and began to purr and looked up at me out of
her moonlit eyes under that scar. I dropped her on the deck and backed
off. You remember Bjoernsen had _kicked_ her--and I didn't want anything
like that happening to--"

The narrator turned upon me with a sudden heat, leaned over and shook
his finger before my face.

"There you go!" he cried. "You, with your stout stone buildings and your
policemen and your neighbourhood church--you're so damn sure. But I'd
just like to see you out there, alone, with the moon setting, and all
the lights gone tall and queer, and a shipmate--" He lifted his hand
overhead, the finger-tips pressed together and then suddenly separated
as though he had released an impalpable something into the air.

"Go on," I told him.

"I felt more like you do, when it got light again, and warm and
sunshiny. I said 'Bah!' to the whole business. I even fed the cat, and I
slept awhile on the roof of the house--I was so sure. We lay dead most
of the day, without a streak of air. But that night--! Well, that night
I hadn't got over being sure yet. It takes quite a jolt, you know, to
shake loose several dozen generations. A fair, steady breeze had come
along, the glass was high, she was staying herself like a doll, and so I
figured I could get a little rest, lying below in the bunk, even if I
didn't sleep.

"I tried not to sleep, in case something should come up--a squall or the
like. But I think I must have dropped off once or twice. I remember I
heard something fiddling around in the galley, and I hollered 'Scat!'
and everything was quiet again. I rolled over and lay on my left side,
staring at that square of moonlight outside my door for a long time.
You'll think it was a dream--what I saw there."

"Go on," I said.

"Call this table-top the spot of light, roughly," he said. He placed a
finger-tip at about the midd