“What do you say?” Rodney asked in a low voice. “We can’t go any nearer. We shall be swamped or stove in. Shall we try another side?”
“Better try one more cast this side,” said Thorndyke; and he spoke so definitely that all the others, including Varney, looked at him curiously. But no one answered, and as the skipper made no demur, the creepers were dropped for a fresh cast still nearer the rock. The boat was then to the north of the lighthouse and the course set was to the south so as to pass the rock again on the east side. As they approached, the man with the megaphone bawled out fresh warnings and continued to roar at them and flourish his arm until they were abreast of the rock in a wild tumble of confused waves. At this moment, Phillip, who had his hand on the trawl-rope between the bollard and the fair-lead, reported that he had felt a pull, but that it seemed as if the creepers had broken away. As soon, therefore, as the boat was clear of the backwash and in comparatively smooth water, the order was passed to haul in the trawl-rope and examine the creepers.
The two Rodneys looked over the side eagerly, but fearfully, for both had noticed something new—a definite expectancy—in Thorndyke’s manner. Varney too, who had hitherto taken but little notice of the creepers, now knelt on the side-bench, gazing earnestly into the clear water whence the trawl-rope was rising. And still he toyed with the hand-lead and absently made clove-hitches on the line and slipped them over his arm.
At length the spar came into view, and below it, on one of the creepers, a yellowish object, dimly visible through the wavering water.
“There’s somethin’ on this time,” said the skipper, craning over the side and steadying himself by the tiller, which he still held. All eyes were riveted on the half-seen yellowish shape, moving up and down to the rise and fall of the boat. Apart from the others, Varney knelt on the bench, not fidgeting now, but still, rigid, pale as wax, staring with dreadful fascination, at the slowly-rising object. Suddenly the skipper uttered an exclamation.
“Why, ’tis a sou’wester! And all laced about wi’ spuny’n! Surely ’tis— Steady, sir! You’ll be overboard! My God!”
The others looked round quickly, and even as they looked, Varney fell, with a heavy splash, into the water alongside. There was a tumultuous rush to the place whence he had fallen and arms were thrust into the water in vain efforts to grasp the sinking figure. Rodney darted forward for the boat-hook, but by the time he was back with it the doomed man was far out of reach; but for a long time—as it seemed—the horror-stricken onlookers could see him through the clear, blue-green water, sinking, sinking, growing paler, more shadowy, more shapeless, but always steadily following the lead sinker until at last he faded from their sight into the darkness of the ocean.
Not until some time after he had vanished did they haul on board the creeper with its dreadful burden. Indeed, that burden, in its entirety, was never hauled on board. As it reached the surface, Tregenna stopped hauling and held the rope steady; and for a sensible time all eyes were fixed upon a skull—with a great, jagged hole above the brows—that looked up at them beneath the peak of the sou’wester, through the web of spunyarn, like the face of some phantom warrior looking out through the bars of his helmet. Then, as Phillip, reaching out an unsteady hand, unhooked the sou’wester from the creeper, the encircling coils of spunyarn slipped and the skull dropped into the water. Still the fascinated eyes watched it as it sank, turning slowly over and over and seeming to cast back glances of horrid valediction; watched it grow green and pallid and small until it vanished into the darkness even as Varney had vanished.
When it was quite invisible, Phillip turned, and, flinging the hat down on the floor of the cockpit, sank on the bench with a groan. Thorndyke picked up the hat and unwound the spunyarn.
“Do you identify it?” he asked; and then, as he turned it over, he added: “But I see it identifies itself.”