Cantle was rolling a cigarette imperturbably.
“Who’s—Jack the Skipper?” he drawled.
“I wish you could tell me,” cried the other. “I wish you could show these the way to his throat!” He held out his hands. “They’d fasten!” he whispered.
He came all of a sudden, quite quietly, and sat by his friend. “Its been going on for three weeks now,” he said rapidly. “They call him that about here—a sort of skit on the other—the other beast, you know. He appears at night—a sort of ghoulish, indescribable monster, black and huge and dripping, and utters one beastly sound and disappears. Nobody’s been able to trace him, or see where he comes from or goes to. He just appears in the night, in all sorts of unexpected places—houseboats, and bungalows, and shanties by the water—and terrifies some lonely child or woman, and is gone. The devil!—O, the devil! We’ve made parties and hunted him, to no good. It’s a regular reign of terror hereabouts. People don’t dare being left alone after dark. He frightened the little Cunningham child into a fit, and it’s not expected to recover. Mrs. Bancock died of an apoplexy after seeing it. And the worst of it is, a deadly superstition’s seized the place. Its visit’s got to be supposed to presage death, and——” He seized Cantle’s hand convulsively.
“Damn it! It’s unnatural, Ned! The river’s haunted—here, in Cockney Datchet—in the twentieth century! You don’t believe in such things—tell me you don’t! But Netta——”
His head sank on his breast. Cantle blew out a placid whiff of smoke.
“But—Miss Varley?” he said.
“You know—you’ve heard, at least,” said the other, “what she was. The thing suddenly stood before her, when she was alone, one night. Well—you see what she is now.”
“I don’t see, nevertheless, why she don’t——”
“Pack and run? No more do I. Put it to her if you like. I’ve said my say. But she’s in the grip—thinks she’s had her call—and there’s no moving her. Cantle, she’s just dying where she stands.”