tormented by an uneasiness about the new
_Sekstring_,[15] which lay down by the bridge ready to set off next
morning, that he had no peace till he went down and tested its
keel-board with his club.

But while he sat in the boat, and was bending over the thwart with a
light, there was a gulping sound out at sea, and then came such a vile
stench of rottenness. The same instant he heard a wading sound, as of
many people coming ashore, and then up over the headland he saw a boat's
crew coming along.

They were all crooked-looking creatures, and they all leaned right
forward and stretched out their arms before them. Whatever came in their
way, both stone and stour,[16] they went right through it, and there was
neither sound nor shriek.

Behind them came another boat's crew, big and little, grown men and
little children, rattling and creaking.

And crew after crew came ashore and took the path leading to the
headland.

When the moon peeped forth Jack could see right into their skeletons.
Their faces glared, and their mouths gaped open with glistening teeth,
as if they had been swallowing water. They came in heaps and shoals, one
after the other: the place quite swarmed with them.

Then Jack perceived that here were all they whom he had tried to count
and reckon up as he lay in bed, and a fit of fury came upon him.

He rose in the boat and spanked his leather breeches behind and cried:
"You would have been even more than you are already if Jack hadn't built
his boats!"

But now like an icy whizzing blast they all came down upon him, staring
at him with their hollow eyes.

They gnashed their teeth, and each one of them sighed and groaned for
his lost life.

Then Jack, in his horror, put out from Sjoeholm.

But the sail slackened, and he glided into dead water.[17] There, in the
midst of the still water, was a floating mass of rotten swollen planks.
All of them had once been shaped and fashioned together, but were now
burst and sprung, and slime and green mould and filth and nastiness hung
about them.

Dead hands grabbed at the corners of them with their white knuckles and
couldn't grip fast. They stretched themselves across the water and sank
again.

Then Jack let out all his clews and sailed and sailed and tacked
according as the wind blew.

He glared back at the rubbish behind him to see if those _things_ were
after him. Down in the sea all the dead hands were writhing, and tried
to strike him with gaffs a