"Let me tell you," he said. "A material law gives us life. The same law takes it away. All material life," stamping the deck, "ends here. From the clay there is no redemption."
At one o'clock in the morning the cook called me.
"What do you want, Steward?" said I.
"There is something in the Captain's room. Something I can't understand. When I am in the room with the light out, I am conscious of some one with me. And yet when I turn on the light that feeling leaves me. Then when I turn out the light and lock the door and sit here by the dining-table I would swear I could hear the sound of footsteps walking around, and the moving of chairs. I tell you, sir, it is mighty strange."
"Are you sure that the sounds you heard were not made by the second mate walking on the deck above?"
"No, sir, not at all. He agreed to stay forward on the deck-load till four bells."
"How about the man at the wheel?" said I. "He could walk around on the steering platform and produce such sounds as you heard in the Captain's room."
"Again you are mistaken. The man at the wheel is too scared to make any move but a natural one, such as turning the wheel, and that movement produces no sound down here in fair weather like we are having."
The cook was truly mystified. He was anxious for me to realize the importance of his investigations in the Captain's room, yet with it all he held fast to his materialistic ideals.
"Cook," said I, "you are taking this thing too seriously. I am certain that I have solved this mystery. Riley is certain that it is not Toby, the cat. Now you come along and are ready to prove that the sounds or walking you have observed were not produced by a material power from the deck above."