Looking off at the single island, a dark blot on the shining sea, Widmer laughed softly.
“There was another race, however: a race by land. There was a prize for that race, such a prize!” Facing about at Hastings, he bit his mustache angrily. “Well, though the prize was rotten at the heart, I won it, by God!” he whispered.
Hastings turned, his fists clenched, but Widmer, the tension of his face departing like a shadow, raised his hand and stepped two paces back. “Be careful, Captain Hastings. A single blow, and you would find yourself in the lazarette. You have the freedom of the ship, but—merely a hint, Captain Hastings, as from friend to friend—guests on this ship have found it unwholesome to leave the straight path from their stateroom to the deck. Ships have many eyes.” Widmer paused. “It will be a rare pleasure to bring home the captain of the Helen of Troy, but if necessary—” Leaving the sentence unfinished, he smiled and strolled away.
And that night, when he should have been asleep, again Hastings heard the woman laughing.
The breath of the monsoon stirred the sea from Hie-che-chin to Vanguard Bank, and leagues and leagues beyond. In the moonlight the waves came rolling up in mountains of silver, vanishing again into the farther darkness, in never-ending succession. They swept past the Winnemere as, with all sail set, she bore down the China Sea, past her and away into the distance like shoals of fish tumbling in the water, and when they had gone a long journey they came to a derelict hull, and tossed it and turned it, and bore it on.
When Widmer had gone on deck, Hastings emerged from his narrow quarters and made his way swiftly through the now familiar cabin, through the captain’s own stateroom, to the single door beyond. He heard, indistinctly from behind the closed door, only a confusion of small sounds, the rustle of skirts, the faint noise of some wooden object pushed along the floor, then the murmur of a voice. “Hush,” it said, very softly, “little one, . . . little one . . . ” Then it broke and rose suddenly to a small, plaintive cry. “He isn’t here, . . . where can he be? . . . little one! . . . little one!”
With shaking hand Hastings fumbled for the latch, found it, and pushed, then pulled, but the oaken door did not yield.
Then from within came that low, strange laughter, and the voice, singularly restrained now, “little one . . . little one!”
Startled by footsteps on deck just outside the companionway, Hastings turned back through the darkness to his stateroom, and closed the door very gently as the companionway was shadowed by the form of some one descending.
Almost stifled by the confinement of the room, he went on deck, when the way was clear, and leaned over the weather rail, with the wind and the flying spray beating hard against his face. But even so, he felt, strangely, that the air was close and that he was restricted by something at once vague, yet paradoxically definite. By and by, wandering amidships, he found the second mate, late promoted from the forecastle, smoking comfortably by the mainmast, and glad of a chance to beguile the watch with friendly conversation.