When Maggie Stiven had been gone about ten minutes—it seemed much longer than that to us—Rab Thomson, who was one of three men who sat by the fire, looked at me with white face, and said:
‘Skipper, you go and look after them. I don’t feel easy in my mind. I’ve a sort of feeling something queer has happened.’
On that I rose, saying I would soon find out, and went to the door. As I opened it I heard a sigh, and then a sort of prolonged groan, and I saw, or fancied I saw, a shadowy figure flit up the stair.
The hall was in darkness, save for the light that fell through the doorway as I held the door partly open. I’m ashamed to say it, but when I saw—if I did see it—that ghostly figure glide up the stairs, and heard the sigh and the groan, I shut the door quickly and drew back into the room.
Like most sailor men, I’m not without some belief in signs, omens, wraiths, and those kind of things; though nobody can say, and nobody must say, I’m wanting in pluck.
I’ve been at sea for thirty-two years, and during that time I’ve faced death in a thousand forms, and never had any feeling of fear. But, to be straight, I don’t like anything that’s uncanny. I like to be able to get a grip of things, and to understand them.
When I started back into the room, Rab Thomson rose to his feet and asked me what I’d seen. I told him I had seen a shadowy figure glide up the stairs, and had heard a sigh and a groan.
He laughed, but it wasn’t a real kind of laugh. He was as white as death, and I heard his teeth chatter, and with a sudden movement he went to one of the long windows, pulled aside the heavy curtain, and, pressing his face to the glass, peered out.
I think his intention was to get out of the window and go home; but he saw what an awful night it was. The snow was still falling heavily; it was piled up against the window, and no one but a madman or a fool would have dreamed of going forth in such a storm, for it was all but certain he would have lost his life in the drifts.
Rab let the curtain fall, and, drawing back, filled himself a measure of whisky, and, tossing it off, said to me: