The After House

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He found Turner waiting on deck, and together they descended to the
chart-room. He was none too clear as to what followed. They drank
together. Vail tried to get Turner to bed, and failed. He believed
that Burns had called the captain. The captain had ordered him to
the deck, and there had been a furious quarrel. He felt ill by that
time, and, when he went on watch at midnight, Burns was uncertain
about leaving him. He was not intoxicated, he maintained, until
after half-past one. He was able to strike the bell without
difficulty, and spoke, each time he went aft, to Charlie Jones, who
was at the wheel.

After that, however, he suddenly felt strange. He thought he had
been doped, and told the helmsman so. He asked Jones to strike the
bell for him, and, going up on the forecastle head, lay down on the
boards and fell asleep. He did not waken until he heard six bells
struck--three o'clock. And, before he had fully roused, I had
called him.

"Then," I said, "when the lookout saw you with the axe, you were
replacing it?"

"Yes."

"The lookout says you were not on deck between two and three o'clock."

"How does he know? I was asleep."

"You had threatened to get the captain."

"I had a revolver; I didn't need to use an axe."

Much as I disliked the man, I was inclined to believe his story,
although I thought he was keeping something back. I leaned forward.

"Singleton," I said, "if you didn't do it, and I want to think you
did not,--who did?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"We have women aboard. We ought to know what precautions to take."

"I wasn't the only man on deck that night. Burns was about, and
he had a quarrel with the Hansen woman. Jones was at the wheel, too.
Why don't you lock up Jones?"

"We are all under suspicion," I admitted. "But you had threatened
the captain."

"I never threatened the girl, or Mr. Vail."

I had no answer to this, and we both fell silent. Singleton was the
first to speak:--

"How are you going to get back? The men can sail a course, but who
is to lay it out? Turner? No Turner ever knew anything about a
ship but what it made for him."

"Turner is sick. Look here, Singleton, you want to get back as much
as we do, or more. Wouldn't you be willing to lay a course, if you
were taken out once a day? Burns is doing it, but he doesn't pretend
to know much about it, and--we have the bodies."

But he turned ugly again, and refused to help unless he was given
his freedom, and that I knew the crew would not agree to.

"You'll be sick enough before you get back!" he snarled.

CHAPTER XIII

THE WHITE LIGHT

With the approach of night our vigilance was doubled. There was no
thought of sleep among the crew, and, with the twilight, there was
a distinct return of the terror of the morning.

Gathered around the wheel, the crew listened while Jones read evening
prayer. Between the two houses, where the deck was roped off, Miss
Lee was alone, pacing back and-forward, her head bent, her arms
dropped listlessly.

The wind had gone, and the sails hung loose over our heads. I stood
by the port rail. Although my back was toward Miss Lee, I was
conscious of her every movement; and so I knew when she stooped under
the rope and moved lightly toward the starboard rail.

Quick as she was, I was quicker. There was still light enough to
see her face as she turned when I called to her:

"Miss Lee You must not leave the rope."

"Must not?"

"I am sorry to seem arbitrary. It is for your own safety."

I was crossing the deck toward her as I spoke. I knew what she was
going to do. I believe, when she saw my face, that she read my
knowledge in it. She turned back from the rail and faced me.

"Surely I may go to the rail!"

"It would be unwise, if for no other reason than discipline."

"Discipline! Are you trying to discipline me?"

"Miss Lee, you do not seem to understand," I said, as patiently as
I could. "Just now I am in charge of the Ella. It does not matter
how unfit I am--the fact remains. Nor does it concern me that your
brother-in-law owns the ship. I am in charge of it, and, God willing,
there will be no more crimes on it. You will go back to the part of
the deck that is reserved for you, or you will go below and stay
there."

She flushed with anger, and stood there with her head thrown back,
eyeing me with a contempt that cut me to the quick. The next moment
she wheeled and, raising her hand, flung toward the rail the key to
the storeroom door. I caught her hand--too late.

But fate was on my side, after all. As I stood, still gripping her
wrist, the key fell ringing almost at my feet. It had struck one of
the lower yard braces. I stooped, and, picking it up, pocketed it.

She was dazed, I think. She made no effort to free her arm, but she
put her other hand to her heart unexpectedly, and I saw that she was
profoundly shocked. I led her, unprotesting, to a deck-chair, and
put her down in it; and still she had not spoken: She lay back and
closed her eyes. She was too strong to faint; she was superbly
healthy. But she knew as well as I did what that key meant, and she
had delivered it into my hands. As for me, I was driven hard that
night; for, as I stood there looking down at her, she held out her
hand to me, palm up.

"Please!" she said pleadingly. "What does it mean to you, Leslie?
We were kind to you, weren't we? When you were ill, we took you on,
my sister and I, and now you hate us."

"Hate you!"

"He didn't know what he was doing. He wasn't sane. No sane man
kills--that way. He had a revolver, if he had wanted--Please
give me that key!"

"Some one will suffer. Would you have the innocent suffer with
the guilty?"

"If they cannot prove it against any one--"

"They may prove it against me."

"You!"

"I was in the after house," I said doggedly. "I was the one to
raise an alarm and to find the bodies. You do not know anything
about me. I am--'Elsa's jail-bird'!"

"Who told you that?"

"It does not matter--I know it. I told you the truth, Miss Elsa;
I came here from the hospital. But I may have to fight for my life.
Against the Turner money and influence, I have only--this key.
Shall I give it to you?"

I held it out to her on the palm of my hand. It was melodramatic,
probably; but I was very young, and by that time wildly in love
with her. I thought, for a moment, that she would take it; but she
only drew a deep breath and pushed my hand away.

"Keep it," she said. "I am ashamed."

We were silent after that, she staring out over the rail at the
deepening sky; and, looking at her as one looks at a star, I thought
she had forgotten my presence, so long she sat silent. The voices
of the men aft died away gradually, as, one by one, they rolled
themselves in blankets on the deck, not to sleep, but to rest and
watch. The lookout, in his lonely perch high above the deck, called
down guardedly to ask for company, and one of the crew went up.

When she turned to me again, it was to find my eyes fixed on her.

"You say you have neither money nor influence. And yet, you are a
gentleman."

"I hope so."

"You know what I mean"--impatiently. "You are not a common sailor."

"I did not claim to be one."

"You are quite determined we shall not know anything about you?"

"There is nothing to know. I have given you my name, which is
practically all I own in the world. I needed a chance to recover
from an illness, and I was obliged to work. This offered the best
opportunity to combine both."

"You are not getting much chance--to rest," she said, with a sigh,
and got up. I went with her to the companionway, and opened the
door. She turned and looked at me.

"Good-night."

"Good-night, Miss Lee."

"I--I feel very safe with you on guard," she said, and held out
her hand. I took it in mine, with my heart leaping. It was as
cold as ice.

That night, at four bells, I mustered the crew as silently as
possible around the jollyboat, and we lowered it into the water.
The possibility of a dead calm had convinced me that the sooner it
was done the better. We arranged to tow the boat astern, and
Charlie Jones suggested a white light in its bow, so we could be
sure at night that it had not broken loose.

Accordingly, we attached to the bow of the jolly-boat a tailed
block with an endless fall riven through it, so as to be able to
haul in and refill the lantern. Five bells struck by the time we
had arranged the towing-line.

We dropped the jolly-boat astern and made fast the rope. It gave
me a curious feeling, that small boat rising and falling behind us,
with its dead crew, and its rocking light, and, on its side above
the water-line, the black cross--a curious feeling of pursuit, as
if, across the water, they in the boat were following us. And,
perhaps because the light varied, sometimes it seemed to drop behind,
as if wearying of the chase, and again, in great leaps, to be
overtaking us, to be almost upon us.

An open boat with a small white light and a black cross on the side.

CHAPTER XIV

FROM THE CROW'S NEST

The night passed without incident, except for one thing that we were
unable to verify. At six bells, during the darkest hour of the night
that precedes the early dawn of summer, Adams, from the crow's-nest,
called down, in a panic, that there was something crawling on all
fours on the deck below him.

Burns, on watch at the companionway, ran forward with his revolver,
and narrowly escaped being brained--Adams at that moment flinging
down a marlinespike that he had carried aloft with him.

I heard the crash and joined Burns, and together we went over the
deck and, both houses. Everything was quiet: the crew in various
attitudes of exhausted sleep, their chests and dittybags around
them; Oleson at the wheel; and Singleton in his jail-room, breathing
heavily.

Adams's nerve was completely gone, and, being now thoroughly awake,
I joined him in the crow's-nest. Nothing could convince him that
he had been the victim of a nervous hallucination. He stuck to his
story firmly.

"It was on the forecastle-head first," he maintained. "I saw it
gleaming."

"Gleaming?"

"Sort of shining," he explained. "It came up over the rail, and
at first it stood up tall, like a white post."

"You didn't say before that it was white."

"It was shining," he said slowly, trying to put his idea into
words. "Maybe not exactly white, but light-colored. It stood
still for so long, I thought I must be mistaken--that it was a
light on the rigging. Then I got to thinking that there wasn't
no place for a light to come from just there."

That was true enough.

"First it was as tall as a man, or taller maybe," he went on.
"Then it seemed about half that high and still in the same place.
Then it got lower still, and it took to crawling along on its
belly. It was then I yelled."

I looked down. The green starboard light threw a light over
only a small part of the deck. The red light did no better. The
masthead was possibly thirty feet above the hull, and served no
illuminating purpose whatever. From the bridge forward the deck
was practically dark.

"You yelled, and then what happened?"

His reply was vague--troubled.

"I'm not sure," he said slowly. "It seemed to fade away. The white
got smaller--went to nothing, like a cloud blown away in a gale.
I flung the spike."

I accepted the story with outward belief and a mental reservation.
But I did not relish the idea of the spike Adams had thrown lying
below on deck. No more formidable weapon short of an axe, could be
devised. I said as much.

"I'm going down for it," I said; "if you're nervous, you'd better
keep it by you. But don't drop it on everything that moves below.
You almost got Burns."

I went down cautiously, and struck a match where Adams had indicated
the spike. It was not there. Nor had Burns picked it up. A
splintered board showed where it had struck, and a smaller
indentation where it had rebounded; but the marlinespike was gone,
and Burns had not seen it. We got a lantern and searched
systematically, without result. Burns turned to me a face ghastly
in the oil light.

"Somebody has it," he said, "and there will be more murder! Oh, my
God, Leslie!"

"When you went back after the alarm, did you count the men?"

"No; Oleson said no one had come forward. They could not have
passed without his seeing them. He has the binnacle lantern and
two other lights."

"And no one came from the after house?"

"No one."

Eight bells rang out sharply. The watch changed. I took the
revolver and Burns's position at the companionway, while Burns went
aft. He lined up the men by the binnacle light, and went over them
carefully. The marlinespike was not found; but he took from the
cook a long meat-knife, and brought both negro and knife forward to
me. The man was almost collapsing with terror. He maintained that
he had taken the knife for self-protection, and we let him go with
a warning.

Dawn brought me an hour's sleep, the first since my awakening in
the storeroom. When I roused, Jones at the wheel had thrown an
extra blanket over me, for the morning was cool and a fine rain was
falling.

The men were scattered around in attitudes of dejection, one or two
of them leaning over the rail, watching the jolly-boat, riding easily
behind us. Jones heard me moving, and turned.

"Your friend below must be pretty bad, sir," he said. "Your
lady-love has been asking for you. I wouldn't let them wake you."

"My--what?"

He waxed apologetic at once.

"That's just my foolishness, Leslie," he said. "No disrespect to
the lady, I'm sure. If it ain't so, it ain't, and no harm done.
If it is so, why, you needn't be ashamed, boy. 'The way of a man
with a maid,' says the Book."

"You should have called me, Jones," I said sharply. "And no
nonsense of that sort with the men."

He looked hurt, but made no reply beyond touching his cap. And,
while I am mentioning that, I may speak of the changed attitude of
the men toward me from the time they put me in charge. Whether the
deference was to the office rather than the man, or whether in
placing me in authority they had merely expressed a general feeling
that I was with them rather than of them, I do not know. I am
inclined to think the former. The result, in any case, was the same.
They deferred to me whenever possible, brought large and small
issues alike to me, served me my food alone, against my protestations,
and, while navigating the ship on their own responsibility, took care
to come to me for authority for everything.

Before I went below that morning, I suggested that some of the spare
canvas be used to erect a shelter on the after deck, and this was
done. The rain by that time was driving steadily--a summer rain
without wind. The men seemed glad to have occupation, and, from that
time on, the tent which they erected over the hatchway aft of the
wheel was their living and eating quarters. It added something to
their comfort: I was not so certain that it added to their security.

Tuner was violent that day. I found all four women awake and dressed,
and Mrs. Turner, whose hour it was on duty, in a chair outside the
door. The stewardess, her arm in a sling, was making tea over a
spirit-lamp, and Elsa was helping her. Mrs. Johns was stretched on
a divan, and on the table lay a small revolver.

Clearly, Elsa had told the incident of the key. I felt at once the
atmosphere of antagonism. Mrs. Johns watched me coolly from under
lowered eyelids. The stewardess openly scowled. And Mrs. Turner
rose hastily, and glanced at Mrs. Johns, as if in doubt. Elsa had
her back to me, and was busy with the cups.

"I'm afraid you've had a bad night," I said.

"A very bad night," Mrs. Turner replied stiffly.

"Delirium?"

"Very marked. He has talked of a white figure--we cannot quite
make it out. It seems to be Wilmer--Mr. Vail."

She had not opened the door, but stood, nervously twisting her
fingers, before it.

"The bromides had no effect?"

She glanced helplessly at the others. "None," she said, after a
moment.

Elsa Lee wheeled suddenly and glanced scornfully at her sister.

"Why don't you tell him?" she demanded. "Why don't you say you
didn't give the bromides?"

"Why not?"

Mrs. Johns raised herself on her elbow and looked at me.

"Why should we?" she asked. "How do we know what you are giving
him? You are not friendly to him or to us. We know what you are
trying to do--you are trying to save yourself, at any cost. You
put a guard at the companionway. You rail off the deck for our
safety. You drop the storeroom key in Mr. Turner's cabin, where
Elsa will find it, and will be obliged to acknowledge she found it,
and then take it from her by force, so you can show it later on
and save yourself!"

Elsa turned on her quickly.

"I told you how he got it, Adele. I tried to throw it--"

"Oh, if you intend to protect him!"

"I am rather bewildered," I said slowly; "but, under the
circumstances, I suppose you do not wish me to look after Mr.
Turner?"

"We think not"--from Mrs. Turner.

"How will you manage alone?"

Mrs. Johns got up and lounged to the table. She wore a long satin
negligee of some sort, draped with lace. It lay around her on the
floor in gleaming lines of soft beauty. Her reddish hair was low
on her neck, and she held a cigarette, negligently, in her teeth.
All the women smoked, Mrs. Johns incessantly.

She laid one hand lightly on the revolver, and flicked the ash from
her cigarette with the other.

"We have decided," she said insolently, "that, if the crew may
establish a dead-line, so may we. Our dead-line is the foot of
the companionway. One of us will be on watch always. I am an
excellent shot."

"I do not doubt it." I faced her. "I am afraid you will suffer for
air; otherwise, the arrangement is good. You relieve me of part of
the responsibility for your safety. Tom will bring your food to the
steps and leave it there."

"Thank you."

"With good luck, two weeks will see us in port; and then--"

"In port! You are taking us back?"

"Why not?"

She picked up the revolver and examined it absently. Then she
glanced at me, and shrugged her shoulders. "How can we know?
Perhaps this is a mutiny, and you are on your way to some God
forsaken island. That's the usual thing among pirates, isn't it?"

"I have no answer to that, Mrs. Johns," I said quietly, and turned
to where Elsa sat.

"I shall not come back unless you send for me," I said. "But I
want you to know that my one object in life from now on is to get
you back safely to land; that your safety comes first, and that
the vigilance on deck in your interest will not be relaxed."

"Fine words!" the stewardess muttered.

The low mumbling from Turner's room had persisted steadily. Now it
rose again in the sharp frenzy that had characterized it through
the long night.

"Don't look at me like that, man!" he cried, and then "He's lost a
hand! A hand!"

Mrs. Turner went quickly into the cabin, and the sounds ceased. I
looked at Elsa, but she avoided my eyes. I turned heavily and went
up the companionway.

CHAPTER XV

A KNOCKING IN THE HOLD

It rained heavily all that day. Late in the afternoon we got some
wind, and all hands turned out to trim sail. Action was a relief,
and the weather suited our disheartened state better than had the
pitiless August sun, the glaring white of deck and canvas, and the
heat.

The heavy drops splashed and broke on top of the jolly-boat, and,
as the wind came up, it rode behind us like a live thing.

Our distress signal hung sodden, too wet to give more than a
dejected response to the wind that tugged at it. Late in the
afternoon we sighted a large steamer, and when, as darkness came
on, she showed no indication of changing her course, Burns and I
sent up a rocket and blew the fog horn steadily. She altered her
course then and came towards us, and we ran up our code flags for
immediate assistance; but she veered off shortly after, and went
on her way. We made no further effort to attract her attention.
Burns thought her a passenger steamer for the Bermudas, and, as
her way was not ours, she could not have been of much assistance.

One or two of the men were already showing signs of strain. Oleson,
the Swede, developed a chill, followed by fever and a mild delirium,
and Adams complained of sore throat and nausea. Oleson's illness
was genuine enough. Adams I suspected of malingering. He had told
the men he would not go up to the crow's-nest again without a
revolver, and this I would not permit.

Our original crew had numbered nine--with the cook and Williams,
eleven. But the two Negroes were not seamen, and were frightened
into a state bordering on collapse. Of the men actually useful,
there were left only five: Clarke, McNamara, Charlie Jones, Burns,
and myself; and I was a negligible quantity as regarded the working
of the ship.

With Burns and myself on guard duty, the burden fell on Clarke,
McNamara, and Jones. A suggestion of mine that we release Singleton
was instantly vetoed by the men. It was arranged, finally, that
Clarke and McNamara take alternate watches at the wheel, and Jones
be given the lookout for the night, to be relieved by either Burns
or myself.

I watched the weather anxiously. We were too short-handed to manage
any sort of a gale; and yet, the urgency of our return made it unwise
to shorten canvas too much. It was as well, perhaps, that I had so
much to distract my mind from the situation in the after house.

The second of the series of curious incidents that complicated our
return voyage occurred that night. I was on watch from eight bells
midnight until four in the morning. Jones was in the crow's-nest,
McNamara at the wheel. I was at the starboard forward corner of
the after house, looking over the rail. I thought that I had seen
the lights of a steamer.

The rain had ceased, but the night was still very dark. I heard a
sort of rapping from the forward house, and took a step toward it,
listening. Jones heard it, too, and called down to me, nervously,
to see what was wrong.

I called up to him, cautiously, to come dawn and take my place
while I investigated. I thought it was Singleton. When Jones had
taken up his position at the companionway, I went forward. The
knocking continued, and I traced it to Singleton's cabin. His
window was open, being too small for danger, but barred across with
strips of wood outside, like those in the after house. But he was
at the door, hammering frantically. I called to him through the
open window, but the only answer was renewed and louder pounding.

I ran around to his door, and felt for the key, which I carried.

"What is the matter?" I called.

"Who is it?"

"Leslie."

"For God's sake, open the door!"

I unlocked it and threw it open. He retreated before me, with his
hands out, and huddled against the wall beside the window. I struck
a match. His face was drawn and distorted, and he held his arm up
as if to ward off a blow.

I lighted the lamp, for there were no electric lights in the forward
house, and stared at him, amazed. Satisfied that I was really Leslie,
he had stooped, and was fumbling under the window. When he
straightened, he held something out to me in the palm of his shaking
hand. I saw, with surprise, that it was a tobacco-pouch.

"Well?" I demanded.

"It was on the ledge," he said hoarsely. "I put it there myself.
All the time I was pounding, I kept saying that, if it was still there,
it was not true--I'd just fancied it. If the pouch was on the floor,
I'd know."

"Know what?"

"It was there," he said, looking over his shoulder. "It's been
there three times, looking in--all in white, and grinning at me."

"A man?"

"It--it hasn't got any face."

"How could it grin--at you if it hasn't any face?" I demanded
impatiently. "Pull yourself together and tell me what you saw."

It was some time before he could tell a connected story, and, when
he did, I was inclined to suspect that he had heard us talking the
night before, had heard Adams's description of the intruder on the
forecastle-head, and that, what with drink and terror, he had
fancied the rest. And yet, I was not so sure.

"I was asleep, the first time," he said. "I don't know how long
ago it was. I woke up cold, with the feeling that something was
looking at me. I raised up in bed, and there was a thing at the
window. It was looking in."

"What sort of a thing?"

"What I told you--white."

"A white head?"

"It wasn't a head. For God's sake, Leslie! I can't tell you any
more than that. I saw it. That's enough. I saw it three times."

"It isn't enough for me," I said doggedly. "It hadn't any head or
face, but it looked in! It's dark out there. How could you see?"

For reply, he leaned over and, turning down the lamp, blew it out.
We sat in the smoking darkness, and slowly, out of the thick night,
the window outlined itself. I could see it distinctly. But how,
white and faceless, had it stared in at the window, or reached
through the bars, as Singleton declared it had done, and waved a
fingerless hand at us?

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