Nearer and nearer it came, till he could see how it jogged and danced along the beach, swaying from side to side, pausing a minute here, and then darting off again, sometimes vanishing completely only to reappear considerably nearer.
Blueneck watched it, fascinated, a strange, uncanny fear creeping over him; everywhere was so dark and lonely, and he strained his eyes peering at the light, fancying that he saw sometimes a man behind it, sometimes a beast, or a fiend. This fear grew upon him every moment, and he tried to struggle to his feet, but his legs were too benumbed to bear him and he sank back again.
The light came nearer and nearer, dancing and swaying more than ever. In a flash the story of the lost rowboat ran through his mind and his flesh began to creep.
Like most sailors, and Spaniards especially, Blueneck was very superstitious; he shuddered and his teeth chattered as he imagined the thing that was holding the lantern to be first a blue swollen corpse with dead sightless eyes, then a rampaging devil with swinging tail and ram’s horns, and then a mermaid whose white teeth were adder’s fangs and whose lips were the nightshade’s berries.
His hand crept up to his neck where a little silver crucifix usually hung, but it was gone; he must have lost it in the fight with Joe. He trembled and mouthed a prayer.
The light seemed to be making straight for him, and as it came nearer, wild, unearthly crooning noises came from it.
Blueneck gulped, and his eyes started from his head and the blood tingled and danced in his veins.
The noise—it was certainly not a song nor yet the cry of an animal, but a sort of long-drawn-out sighing on a high quavering note—came nearer and grew louder. Now the light was within fifteen paces of him and he held his breath. Nearer it came.
“Doña Maria, let it pass,” he prayed. Now it was within five yards of him, and came nearer still. Straining his eyes, he could make out a fearful bundle-like figure behind the lantern. The noise grew louder; nearer it came till the light stopped three feet away from him, and fell on the most evil and half-human face the terrified sailor had ever seen.
This was the last straw, and Blueneck screamed. The sound rang out high and short as he dropped back on the weed, half insensible. However much the thing with the lantern had frightened him, he certainly frightened it with his yell, for it sprang back and emitted a howl which started the echoes and woke the sea-birds who screamed also as they flapped sleepily away.