"And neither you nor Adam nor the others thought to search this dog-hole of mine?"
"Lord love ye—no, Mart'n! How should three men hide here?"
"Three men? Aye, true enough!" says I, clasping my head to stay the rush and hurry of my thoughts.
"Come aloft, pal, 'tis a fair evening and the fine folk all a-supping in the great cabin. Come into the air."
"Yes," I nodded, "yes, 'twill clear my head and I must think, Godby, I must think. Reach me my doublet," says I, for now I felt myself all shivering as with cold. So Godby took up the garment where it lay and held it out to me; but all at once let it fall and, drawing back, stood staring down at it, and all with never a word; whiles I sat crouched upon my bed, my head between my clenched fists and my mind reeling beneath the growing horror of the thought that filled me. And now, even as this thought took dreadful shape and meaning—even as suspicion grew to certainty, I heard Godby draw a gasping breath, saw him reach a stealthy, fumbling hand behind him and open the door, and then, leaping backwards, he was swallowed in the dark, and with a hurry of stumbling feet, was gone.
But I scarcely heeded his going or the manner of it, so stunned was I by the sudden realisation of the terror that had haunted my ghastly slumbers and evil wakings, a terror that (if my dreadful speculations were true) was very real after all, a peril deadly and imminent.
The truth of which I now (and feverishly) set myself to prove beyond all doubt, and reached for the lanthorn. Now in so doing my foot caught in the doublet lying where Godby had dropped it, and I picked it up out of the way; but as I lifted it into the light I let it fall again (even as Godby had done): and now, staring down at it, felt my flesh suddenly a-creep for, as it lay there at my feet, I saw upon one sleeve a great, dark stain that smeared it up from wrist to elbow—the hideous stain of new-spilt blood.