CHAPTER 28
"She's dead?" McTee asked softly when they stood on the promenade outside.
"She is. She must have been dying at about the time I brought in that other message—the one you told me to bring."
They avoided each other's eyes. Inside the cabin they heard a faint sound like paper crumpled up. Then they caught a moan from the room—a soft sound such as the wind makes when it hums around the corners of a tall building.
They were silent for a time, listening with painful intentness. Not another murmur came from the cabin. Sloan wiped his wet forehead and whispered shakily: "I wouldn't mind it so much if he'd curse and rave. But to sit like that, not making a sound—it ain't natural, Captain McTee."
"Hush, you fool," said McTee. "White Henshaw is alone with his dead.
And it's me that he blames for it. I brought him the bad luck."
Sloan shuddered.
"Then I wouldn't have your name for ten thousand dollars, sir."
"If there's bad luck," said McTee solemnly, for every sailor has some superstitious belief, "it's on the entire ship—on every one of the crew as well as on me. We'll have to pay for this—all of us—and pay high. We're apt to feel it before long. And I've got to go back to that cabin after a while!"
He spoke it as another man might say: "And an hour from now I have to face the firing squad."