The blade of the propeller began to revolve, and the ship to forge slowly forward. My tongue was parched and my temples throbbing, and the delirium of fever came over me.
My eyes still open looked far away forward, into the pagoda of Singapore. And before the Buddha knelt the throng of worshippers, and the idol looked down upon them in content and triumph, and in his nostrils were now the catseyes, sparkling on either side. And a shadowy form that I knew for the ghost of the woman came before the god and fell prostrate, and lay there praying for me; and the idol did not frown, but gazed still content; and I knew that the curse was lifted from me.
Then my eyes could close, and the fire went from them, and the darkness came and gentle sleep.
"SHE MOUNTED THE POOP AND JUMPED INTO THE WATER."
The next thing I knew was that Mac was pouring quinine down my throat, and we were out at sea and the sun was shining. And at Aden, where we coaled, was a letter from Mary; and I was well again.
The Second met the fate he feared. You know from the papers how the voyage ended; no one knows, and only I can guess, how it came to end as it did. It was off Ushant, almost in sight of home. The Second had the watch. The moon was at its full; there was not a cloud to cast a shadow. The man at the wheel saw a huge rock loom on the starboard bow. He veered off a point to give it a wide berth; the Second came towards him and took the wheel himself. And then, the man declares, he headed straight for the rock, his eyes fixed intently in front of him, his hands a-tremble with unavailing fear. The man thought he was mad, and tried to tear the spokes away; the Second, with strength almost supernatural, with one hand lifted him up, and hurled him to the lower deck. Then the ship forged on, straight to the rock ahead.
The boats were lowered and quickly filled, and were casting off. I sprang up to the bridge—I touched the Second's arm and took his hand in mine.
As I hurried him down the gangway and across the forehold, a boom of the winch pinned him to the deck and he could not move.
Then, as I live, I saw a woman—a black woman—holding him in her arms, holding him down. There came a rush of water. The vessel slid back into the trough of the sea. The woman kissed him—he shrieked aloud—and the waves sucked them in together.