"Are you English?" demanded Scott sharply.
The other had halted a man's length from him. "Ay," he said, "I'm English."
"Well," said Scott, making to move on, but pointing to where the other white figures were waiting in a group near by, "what are those chaps waiting for?"
"They'll not hurt you," answered the other. He mumbled a little when he spoke, like a man with a full mouth.
"Anyhow," said Scott, "they'd better pass on; I prefer it that way. Superban's not London, you know."
There came a laugh from the sheet that covered the man's head, short and harsh. "If it was," he said, "you'd not be meeting us, me lad."
"Who are you?" demanded Scott. Some quality in the man—his manner of speech, the tone of his laugh, or that faint, unidentifiable taint—made him uneasy.
"Me?" said the man. "Well, I'll tell you. I'm Captain John Crowder, I am—what's left of me, and that's a sick soul inside a dead body. And them"—he made a motion toward the waiting ghosts—"them's my crew these days. We're the chaps that fetches the dead, we are."
Scott peered at him eagerly, and stepped forward.
The other avoided him by stepping back. "Not too near," he said. "It ain't sense."