"Well, sir, of course we can't tell. Only I, myself, would like to get back to Barking once again before the Vispera goes away from under me."
"Are you a fool, Davis?"
"I hope not, sir."
"Well, it seems to me that such superstitions don't suit a hard, practical man like yourself. You've held a master's certificate for the past twenty years or more, and surely by this time you aren't upset or unnerved by the gossip of the forecastle?"
"Not usually, Mr. Keppel. But in this case I confess I am a bit dubious. I saw the mysterious light myself."
"I might have gone there for some purpose or other, and forgot to switch off the light."
"Yes, but it disappeared during the time I watched it," was the response. "To make sure that you were not there I sent a man down to your cabin, and he found you asleep there. So you couldn't have been in here."
"Electric lights have queer vagaries," the owner of the vessel remarked. "Perhaps the continual vibration of the engines injured the lamp, and extinguished it just at that moment. That's not at all an uncommon circumstance, as you know well."
"No, sir!" I heard Davis say in a tone of conviction; "there was either somebody in here, or else something uncanny. Of that I'm quite certain."
"Stowaways don't usually luxuriate in electric lights," laughed Keppel. "No, Davis, without doubt there is some quite simple explanation of what you believe to be a phenomenon. Think no more about it. Leave omens and all such things to these superstitious Italians."