I turned and with what I conceived to be equal dignity marched back toward the gangway. Duty called me. There would be more drunken sailors to drive to their bunks.
I don’t know why I left the gangway after a short ten minutes except that I loved John Henry and felt a vague desire to see that he was all right. But of course I wouldn’t let him know that. I couldn’t sacrifice my dignity as watchman in charge of the ship. So I marched forward very importantly, past the mizzen, past the mainmast and around the cook’s galley and there I found John Henry!
He had tied the rope around the capstan on the fo’c’s’le head and jumped down toward the main deck. There he hung, with his feet scarce six inches from the main deck and the hangman’s knot under his left ear canting his head rakishly to one side. His body was turning slowly on the rope and as I stared his face came around so his popped eyes stared back at me and his wide opened mouth seemed to sneer, “I told you I’d do it.”
Staring into those popped eyes I couldn’t cry out—I couldn’t move; and then after what seemed a million years the body turned on the rope and the face went away from me, releasing me from my speechless terror. I shrieked, and whirling away I ran aft, down into the lazarette and hid underneath a pile of old canvas. I heard the rats running to safety at my approach to their domains in the dark. I had killed John Henry! I had killed John Henry! Over and over in a numbing pain the words rushed to my brain!
I don’t know exactly how long I stayed there before I heard voices on the deck above me. I was afraid to come out of hiding. I could tell by the excitement that John Henry’s body had been found. A few hours before in the afternoon I had been sore at him for encouraging me to curse and now he was dead!
Weak, and still shaking with fright I found my way on deck. I saw Father and a group of strange men on deck surrounding a figure covered with canvas.
I called to Father:
“Here I am. I didn’t do it—honest I didn’t.” And I crumpled over crying.
Father picked me up and held me in his arms.
“What makes you think you did it, Joan?” he asked, so quietly and tenderly that I told him the whole story.