haps I was, a little. I ran the match
along close to the ceiling and came upon a rusty hook a little aport
of the center.

"There," I said. "Was there anything hanging from this--er--say a
parrot--or something, McCord?" The match burned my fingers and went
out.

"What do you mean?" McCord demanded from the doorway. I got myself back
into the comfortable yellow glow of the cabin before I answered, and
then it was a question.

"Do you happen to know anything about this craft's personal history?"

"No. What are you talking about! Why?"

"Well, I do," I offered. "For one thing, she's changed her name.
And it happens this isn't the first time she's--well, damn it all,
fourteen years ago I helped pick up this whatever-she-is off the
Virginia Capes--in the same sort of condition. There you are!" I was
yapping like a nerve-strung puppy.

McCord leaned forward with his hands on the table, bringing his face
beneath the fan of the hanging-lamp. For the first time I could mark
how shockingly it had changed. It was almost colorless. The jaw had
somehow lost its old-time security and the eyes seemed to be loose
in their sockets. I had expected him to start at my announcement; he
only blinked at the light.

"I am not surprised," he remarked at length. "After what I've seen and
heard--". He lifted his fist and brought it down with a sudden crash on
the table. "Man--let's have a nip!"

He was off before I could say a word, fumbling out of sight in the
narrow state-room. Presently he reappeared, holding a glass in either
hand and a dark bottle hugged between his elbows. Putting the glasses
down, he held up the bottle between his eyes and the lamp, and its
shadow, falling across his face, green and luminous at the core, gave
him a ghastly look--like a mutilation or an unspeakable birth-mark. He
shook the bottle gently and chuckled his "Dead men's liquor" again.
Then he poured two half-glasses of the clear gin, swallowed his portion,
and sat down.

"A parrot," he mused, a little of the liquor's color creeping into his
cheeks. "No, this time it was a cat, Ridgeway. A yellow cat. She was--"

"_Was?_" I caught him up. "What's happened--what's become of her?"

"Vanished. Evaporated. I haven't seen her since night before last, when
I caught her trying to lower the boat--"

"_Stop it!_" It was I who banged the table now, without any of the
reserve of decency. "McCord, you're drunk--_drunk_, I tell you. A _cat_!
Let a _cat_ throw