Again, this time close to my head, against the starboard bulkhead, came the sound, like two gentle "thuds" on the planking, causing a distinct tremor to thrill through the yacht.
I cannot imagine any more "eerie" sensation than to go to sleep as I had done, with a profound sense of isolation and loneliness, cut off from humanity by a waste of fog and darkness and far-stretching water, and to be awakened in the dead of night by the startling knowledge that outside there, in that very loneliness, only divided from my little cabin by a thin planking—was something—and that something not shouting as any human being would shout at such a time—but knocking—as if wishing to be let in to warmth and comfort, out of the chill and darkness.
Can I be blamed if my suddenly aroused and somewhat bemused senses played tricks with me, and my startled imagination began to conjure up the gruesome stories I had heard of weird visitants, and ghostly beings, heard but seldom seen, on the East Anglian meres and broads? Then again came the remembrance of the shriek or cry I had fancied I heard earlier in the night, and with a shudder I thought: "How ghastly if it should be the drowned body of him whose cry I had heard, knocking thus in grisly fashion to be taken in before the tide carried it away to sea!"
So far had my excited imagination carried me, when again the yacht shook with the thud of something striking her, and a great revulsion of relief came over me as I recognised the dull sound of wood striking wood, this time farther aft, and I laughed aloud at my cowardice.
No doubt a log of driftwood, bumping its way along the side of the yacht, as logs will, as the ebbing tide carried it seawards.
However, by this time I had lighted the lamp; so, to satisfy my still perturbed though much ashamed mind, I thrust my feet into sea-boots and my body into a pea-jacket over my clothes, and went on deck, lamp in hand, to see what my unwelcome visitor really was.
Through the mist, dimly illumined by the lamp, I made out the shadowy outline of a boat, drifting slowly towards the stern of the yacht, and occasionally bumping gently against her side.
Another moment or two and the derelict would have vanished into the night. But the long boathook lay at my feet along the bulwark, and, almost instinctively, I caught it up with one hand, whilst setting the lamp down with the other, ran to the stern and made a wild grab in the dark towards where I thought she would be.
The hook caught, and I hauled my prize alongside; stooping down, I felt for the painter, which I naturally expected to find trailing in the water, thinking the boat had broken loose from somewhere through carelessness in making her fast.