He jumped up, groped his way to his mate's hammock and was very much astonished not to find him there. Having lost his sleep, he lit a cigarette and went to look down into the waters below. The sea on that side of the ship was as smooth and as dark as a black mirror. He had not been gazing long when, as usual, he began to see sparks, then fiery rods whirling about and chasing each other. The rods soon changed into snakes of all sizes and colours, especially greenish-blue and purple. They twirled and twisted into the most fantastic shapes; then they all sank down in the waters and disappeared. All this was nothing new; but, when they vanished, he was startled to behold, in their stead, the face of the pitted man he had just seen in his sleep stare at him viciously with his single eye. He drew back, frightened, and the face vanished. After an instant, he looked again; he saw nothing more, but the inky waters seemed thick with blood.
The next morning Milenko was looked for everywhere uselessly. Uros, who was the last person that had seen him, related how he had gone off to sleep and had left him leaning on the main-yard. At first, every one thought that he had gone on shore for something, and that he would be back presently; but time passed and Milenko did not make his appearance. The wind was favourable, the sails were spread, they had only to heave the anchor to start; everybody began to fear that some accident had happened to him to detain him on shore. Uros was continually haunted by his dream, especially by the face of the single-eyed man. He offered to go in search of his friend.
"Well," replied the captain, "I think I'll come with you; two'll find him quicker than one alone, for now we have no time to lose."
They went on shore and enquired at a coffee-house, but the sleepy waiters could not give them any information. They asked some boatmen lounging about the wharf, still with no better success. A porter from Ragusa finally said that he had heard of a murder committed that night on the road, but all the particulars were, as yet, unknown. Doubtless it was a skirmish between some smugglers and the watch.
Anyhow, when Uros heard of bloodshed, his heart sank within him, and the image of the swarthy man appeared before the eyes of his mind, and he fancied his friend weltering in a pool of dark blood.
"Had we not better go at once to Ragusa? we might hear something about him there?" said the captain to Uros.
"But do you think he can have been murdered?"
"Murdered? No; what a foolish idea! He had no money about him; he was dressed like a common sailor; he could not have been flirting with somebody's sweetheart. Why should he have been murdered?"
The two men hired a gig and drove off at once. When they reached Ragusa, they found the quiet town in a bustle on account of a murder that had taken place on the roadside. The old counts and marquises of the republic forgot their wonted dignity—forgot even their drawling way of speaking—and questioned the barber, the apothecary, or the watch at the town gate with unusual fluency.
A murder on the road to Gravosa! A most unheard-of thing. Soon people would be murdered within the very walls of the town! Such things had never happened in the good olden times!