Wondering what was in his mind, yet remembering the incident of his childhood and my own late nightmares, I struck out with my heels, and firmly commanded the creature to go. It went, I suppose, for he thanked me, and subsided; then I lay back, and was almost asleep when he roused me again, this time with a shriek.
"The thing!" he gasped. "The thing without legs, or arms, or head! Help me, Jim!"
This was too much for me. Dimly realizing that there was a psychic, if not moral, sympathy between us, yet unwilling to defy this THING that troubled him, or even to question him, I sang out to the man at the wheel, whom I could just perceive through a crack left by the partly opened hatch.
"On deck, there!" I called. "On deck, you at the wheel! Tell the skipper that this man down here has the jimjams, and needs attention."
He answered me, and then I heard his voice, calling forward. Soon the captain appeared, dropping down the hatch, and stepping quickly out of our reach. In spite of his demonstration with the pistol, he was a kindly faced man of about fifty, slight and stoop-shouldered, a man that any troubled soul might appeal to.
"What seems to be the matter here?" he asked, looking us over.
"D. T.'s, captain," I answered, pointing to Fred. "He needs a drink, and then some bromide, or whatever you have for the symptoms."
"But you seem to be all right."
"All but the scalp wound from your belaying pin, captain," I answered. "It came too late, from what I have heard."
"Yes, you had killed my first mate before I could reach you. I did not want to shoot. What manner of men are you, who can kill with your hands? My mate is dead; my second mate unable to speak, scarcely able to breathe. How did you do it?"