e
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 middle of the forward edge and drew it slowly
toward the center. "Here, what would correspond with the upper side of
the companion-way, there came down very gradually the shadow of a tail.
I watched it streaking out there across the deck, wiggling the slightest
bit now and then. When it had come down about half-way across the light,
the solid part of the animal--its shadow, you understand--began to
appear, quite big and round. But how could she hang there, done up in a
ball, from the hatch?"

He shifted his finger back to the edge of the table and puddled it
around to signify the shadowed body.

"I fished my gun out from behind my back. You see I was feeling
funny again. Then I started to slide one foot over the edge of the bunk,
always with my eyes on that shadow. Now I swear I didn't make the sound
of a pin dropping, but I had no more than moved a muscle when that
shadowed thing twisted itself around in a flash--and there on the floor
before me was the profile of a man's head, upside down, listening--a
man's head with a tail of hair."

McCord got up hastily and stepped in front of the state-room door, where
he bent down and scratched a match.

"See," he said, holding the tiny flame above a splintered scar on the
boards. "You wouldn't think a man would be fool enough to shoot at a
shadow?"

He came back and sat down.

"It seemed to me all hell had shaken loose. You've no idea, Ridgeway,
the rumpus a gun raises in a box like this. I found out afterward the
slug ricochetted into the galley, bringing down a couple of pans--and
that helped. Oh yes, I got out of here quick enough. I stood there, half
out of the companion, with my hands on the hatch and the gun between
them, and my shadow running off across the top of the house shivering
before my eye