There was not a breath of sound. Those with whom I had been conversing were as mute as graven images, but in the black pall just beyond our taffrail drifted the magnetic presence toward which every nerve and fiber of my body pointed;—pointed, aye, tugged and wrestled with my poor flesh to be free! Yet, silence; all silence. No sound, no vision, no anything to guide me, other than my flashing brain and thumping heart which spoke of her.
I saw one of our sailors staring at the water with strange owlish eyes, and yelled at him:
"Into the gig, man!"
But this was frustrated before he moved, for some black shadow, showing vaguely, glided out from beneath our rail and disappeared. I could not be sure that I saw it, but the sailor did because he crossed himself.
"It ain't no use—now, sir," he managed to say.
My own eyes were trying to follow the eerie, silent thing which had passed so spookily into the night, leaving the merest suggestion of phosphorescence after it. Then an arm slipped affectionately about my shoulders, and I felt that Tommy was also standing by, looking along the trail of deadened sound. His face showed excitement, but he whispered steadily enough:
"Come and sit down."
Indeed, now that the thing had disappeared, I felt like an ass; and, resuming my seat, attempted to make the best of it.
"Really," I laughed, "you fellows mustn't judge a man too critically. There was something in the voice of that young lady which took me off my guard, and recalled—well, it recalled what you've all probably had recalled by one means or another, at some time or other, during your—er—lives." And I gave a weakish smile, waving my hand toward any old thing in sight by way of saying: "You know, old chaps, how just that one girl plays the devil with a fellow, sometimes!"
But the government officials received this in a different spirit than that which I had hoped to arouse. They looked at me with a gravity most disquieting, and Hardwick, suspicion written in every line of his face, asked: