to myself
it must be pretty near time for me to go on deck. I scratched a match
and looked at my watch. 'That fellow must be either a good chap or
asleep,' I said to myself. And I rolled out quick and went above-decks.
He wasn't at the wheel. I called him: 'Bjoernsen! Bjoernsen!' No answer."

McCord was really telling a story now. He paused for a long moment, one
hand shielding an ear and his eyeballs turned far up.

"That was the first time I really went over the hulk," he ran on. "I
got out a lantern and started at the forward end of the hold, and I
worked aft, and there was nothing there. Not a sign, or a stain,
or a scrap of clothing, or anything. You may believe that I 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 neighborhood 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 com