"Make!"
"Yessir, Mr. Jones, make her throw it away, sir."
I laughed to reassure him, though I must acknowledge that I was impressed by his manner. My laughter had the effect of reassuring myself somewhat also.
"Shall I take the boat and row out and sink this dangerous bauble with its snake's body"—a tremor seemed to seize my listener, and he shook as if with a chill—"and its sheep's head?"
"Do not make fun of it, sir. You will be sor——"
"We will go and get it, Bo's'n, and you shall row me out while I——"
"Do not ask me to touch it, sir. There is doom in that sign." I noticed that he did not call it a ring, as I had done; and then he came close to me and looked into my eyes with impressive and beseeching earnestness, and said in a whisper:
"You may take it out to sea, far, far out to sea, and drop it beneath the waves, but the storms will come, the waves will roll, and the breakers will dash it again on the shore. You may bury it in a pit so deep that you can hardly get yourself out again from its grave, but an earthquake will rumble beneath it and with its cracks will upheave it, and it will be here again. You may take it to the top of yonder mountain and lay it on the topmost peak, but the tempests will come and the hurricane will blow and will toss it again at your feet. She has found it, and it will follow her to the end—to the end."
The mysterious tone of the man, the ghostlike voice in which he spoke, made me feel unpleasantly, although it was broad day and the sun was shining brightly. He seemed to be lifted out of himself, and to speak in a voice and tone not his own. I tried to laugh. I reasoned with myself thus. How utterly absurd that a man of little education, of the most ordinary ability, and, withal, a man holding that absurd position Bo's'n of a merchant craft, should have an insight into mystical and occult things which none of the rest of us possess! But as he still stood staring at me, and directly into my eyes, as if he would read into the very depths of my mind, I began to have what is commonly called a creepy sensation. Little shivers ran up my backbone, and I longed for other companionship. I cast a glance at the dead men, and felt that if I were to retain the strength to go for aid to bury them, the sooner I went the better for me. With difficulty I withdrew my gaze from the man's eyes.
"Come, come, Bo's'n!" I said, forcing a laugh, "you are overwrought and nervous. Come back with me, and I will give you my word that you shall not see the ring again while you remain with us."