menu_book Chapter 8

The Secret Sharer. The Second Tale in Twicksland and Sea. Chapter 1. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Peter Dan. The Secret Sharer. Chapter 1. On my right hand there were lines of fishing steaks resembling a mysterious system of half submerged bamboo fences, incomprehensible in its division of the domain of tropical fishes and crazy of aspect, as if

abandoned forever by some nomad tribe of fishermen now gone to the other end of the ocean, for there was no sign of human habitation as far as the eye could reach. To the left a group of barren islets suggesting ruins of stone walls, towers and block houses, had its foundation set in a blue sea that itself looked solid, so still and stable did it lie below my feet. Even the track of

light from the western sun shone smoothly, without that animated glitter which tells of an imperceptible ripple. And when I turned to my head to take a parting glance at the tug which had just left us anchored outside the bar, I saw the straight line of the flat shore joined to the stable sea, edge to edge, with a perfect and unmarked closeness, in one levelled floor half brown, half

blue, under the enormous dome of the sky. Corresponding in their insignificance to the islets of the sea, two small clumps of trees, one on each side of the only fault in the impeccable joint, marked the mouth of the River Minum we had just left on the first preparatory stage of our homeward journey. And far back on the inland level, a larger and loftier mass, the

grove surrounding the great Paknam Pagoda, was the only thing on which the eye could rest from the vain task of exploring the monotonous sweep of the horizon. Here and there gleams, as of a few scattered pieces of silver, marked the windings of the great river, and on the nearest of them, just within the bar, the tugs steaming right into the land became lost to my sight, hull and funnel

and masts, as though the impassive earth had swallowed her up without an effort, without a tremor. My eye followed the light cloud of her smoke, now here, now there, above the plain, according to the devious curves of the stream, but always fainter and farther away, till I lusted at last behind the mitre-shaped hill of the great pagoda. And then I was left alone with my ship, anchored at the head

of the Gulf of Siam. She floated at the starting point of a long journey, very still, in an immense stillness, the shadows of her spas flung far to the eastward by the setting sun. At that moment I was alone on her decks. There was not a sound in her, and around us nothing moved, nothing lived, not a canoe on the water, not a bird in the air, not a cloud in the sky. In this breathless

pause at the threshold of a long passage we seemed to be measuring our fitness for a long and arduous enterprise, the appointed task of both our existences, to be carried out far from all human eyes, with only sky and sea for spectators and for judges. There must have been some glare in the air to interfere with one sight, because it was only just before the sun left us that by roaming eyes made

out beyond the highest ridge of the principal islet of the group, something which did away with the solemnity of perfect solitude. The tide of darkness flowed on swiftly, and with tropical suddenness a swarm of stars came out above the shadowy earth, while I lingered yet, my hand resting lightly on my ship's rail as if on the shoulder of a trusted friend. But with all that multitude of

celestial bodies staring down at one, the comfort of quiet communion with her was gone for good. And there were also disturbing sounds by this time, voices, footsteps forward. The steward flitted along the main deck, a busily ministering spirit, a handbell tingled urgently under the poop deck. I found my two officers waiting for me near the supper table in the lighted cuddy. We sat down at once,

and as I helped the chief maid I said, Are you aware that there is a ship anchored inside the islands? I saw her masked heads above the ridge as the sun went down. He raised sharply his simple face, overcharged by a terrible growth of whisker, and omitted his usual ejaculations. Bless my soul, sir, you don't say so. My second mate was a round-cheeked, silent young man, grave beyond his years,

I thought. But as our eyes happened to meet, I detected a slight quiver on his lips. I looked down at once. It was not my part to encourage sneering on board my ship. It must be said, too, that I knew very little of my officers. In consequence of certain events of no particular significance, except of myself, I had been appointed to the command only a fortnight before. Neither did I know much

of the hands forward. All these people had been together for 18 months or so, and my position was that of the only stranger on board. I mention this because it has some bearing on what is to follow. But what I felt most was my being a stranger to the ship, and if all the truth must be told, I was somewhat of a stranger to myself. The youngest man on board, barring the second mate, and

untried as yet by a position of the fullest responsibility, I was willing to take the adequacy of the others for granted. They had simply to be equal to their task, but I wondered how far I should turn out to be faithful to that ideal conception of one's own personality every man sets up for himself, secretly. Meantime, the chief mate, with an almost visible effect of collaboration

on the part of his round eyes and frightful whiskers, was trying to evolve a theory of the anchored ship. His dominant tray was to take all things into earnest consideration. He was of a painstaking turn of mind. As he used to say, he liked to account to himself for practically everything that came in his way, down to a miserable scorpion he had found in his cabin a week before. The why

and the wherefore of that scorpion, how it got on board and came to select his room rather than the pantry, which was a dark place and more what a scorpion would be partial to, and how on earth it managed to drown itself in the inkwell of his writing desk, had exercised him infinitely. The ship within the islands was much more easily accounted for, and just as we were about to rise from table

he made his pronouncement. She was, he doubted not, a ship from home, lately arrived. Probably she drew too much water to cross the bar except at the top of spring tides. Therefore she went into that natural harbour to wait for a few days in preference to remaining in an open roadstead. That's so, confirmed the second mate suddenly in his slightly hoarse voice. She draws over 20 feet.

She's the Liverpool ship Sephora with a cargo of coal, 123 days from Cardiff. We looked at him in surprise. The tugboat skipper told me when he came on board for your letter, sir, explained the young man. He expects to take her up the river the day after tomorrow. After thus overwhelming us with the extent of his information he slipped out of the cabin. The mate observed regretfully that he

could not account for the young fellow's whims. What prevented him telling us all about it at once, he wanted to know. I detained him as he was making a move. For the last two days the crew had had plenty of hard work, and the night before they had very little sleep. I felt painfully that I, a stranger, was doing something unusual when I directed him to let all hands turn in without setting

an anchor watch. I proposed to keep on deck myself till one o'clock or thereabouts. I would get the second mate to relieve me at that hour. It will turn out the cook and the steward at four, I concluded, and then give you a call. Of course, at the slightest sign of any sort of wind we'll have the hands up and make a start at once. He concealed his astonishment.

Very well, sir. Outside the cuddy he put his head in the second mate's door to inform him of my unheard-of caprice to take a five hours anchor watch on myself. I heard the other raise his voice incredulously. What, the captain himself? Then a few more murmurs, a door closed, then another. A few moments later I went on deck. My strangeness, which had made me sleepless, had prompted that

unconventional arrangement as if I had expected in those solitary hours of the night to get on terms with the ship of which I knew nothing, manned by men of whom I knew very little more. Fast alongside a wharf, littered like any ship in port with a tangle of unrelated things, invaded by unrelated shore people, I had hardly seen her yet properly. Now as she lay cleared for sea, the stretch of

her main deck seemed to me very fine under the stars, very fine, very roomy for her size, and very inviting. I descended the poop and paced the waste, my mind picturing to myself the coming passage through the Malay archipelago, down the Indian Ocean and up the Atlantic. All its phases were familiar enough to me, every characteristic, all the alternatives which were likely to

face me on the high seas, everything except the novel responsibility of command. But I took heart from the reasonable thought that the ship was like other ships, the men like other men, and that the sea was not likely to keep any special surprises, especially for my discomfiture. Arrived at that comforting conclusion, I overthought myself of a cigar and went below to get it. All was

still down there. Everybody at the after end of the ship was sleeping profoundly. I came out again on the quarter deck, agreeably at ease in my sleeping suit on that warm breathless night, barefooted, a glowing cigar in my teeth, and going forward I was met by the profound silence of the fore end of the ship. Only as I passed the door of the folksle, I heard a deep, quiet, trustful sigh of some sleeper

inside, and suddenly I rejoiced in the great security of the sea as compared with the unrest of the land, in my choice of that untempted life, presenting no disquieting problems, invested with an elementary moral beauty, by the absolute straightforwardness of its appeal and by the singleness of its purpose. The riding light in the fore rigging burned with a clear untroubled, as if symbolic,

flame, confident and bright in the mysterious shades of the night. Passing on my way aft along the other side of the ship, I observed that the rope side ladder, put over no doubt for the master of the tug when he came to fetch away our letters, had not been hauled in as it should have been. I became annoyed at this, for exactitude in small matters is the very soul of discipline. Then I reflected

that I had myself peremptorily dismissed my officers from duty, and by my own act had prevented the anchor watch being formally set and things properly attended to. I asked myself whether it was wise ever to interfere with the established routine of duties, even from the kindest of motives. My action might have made me appear eccentric. Goodness only knew how that absurdly whiskered

mate could account for my conduct, and what the whole ship thought of that informality of their new captain. I was vexed with myself. Not from compunction certainly, but as it were mechanically, I proceeded to get the ladder in myself. Now a side ladder of that sort is a light affair and comes in easily, yet my vigorous tug, which should have brought it flying on board, merely recoiled upon

my body in a totally unexpected jerk. What the devil! I was so astounded by the immovableness of that ladder that I remained stock still, trying to account for it to myself, like that imbecile mate of mine. In the end, of course, I put my head over the rail. The side of the ship made an opaque belt of shadow on the darkling glassy shimmer of the sea, but I saw at once something elongated and pale,

floating very close to the ladder. Before I could form a guess, a faint flash of phosphorescent light, which seemed to issue suddenly from the naked body of a man, flickered in the sleeping water with the elusive silent play of summer lightning in a night sky. With a gasp I saw revealed to my stare a pair of feet, the long legs, a broad-livered back, immersed right up to the neck in a

greenish cavernous glow. One hand, a wash, clutched the bottom rung of the ladder. He was complete but for the head, a headless corpse. The cigar dropped out of my gaping mouth with a tiny plop and a short hiss quite audible in the absolute stillness of all things under heaven. At that, I suppose, he raised up his face, a dimly pale oval in the shadow of the ship's side. But even then I could only

barely make out down there the shape of his black-haired head. However, it was enough for the horrid frostbound sensation which had gripped me about the chest to pass off. The moment of vain exclamations was past too. I only climbed on the spare spar and leaned over the rail as far as I could to bring my eyes nearer to that mystery floating alongside. As he hung by the ladder like

a resting swimmer, the sea lightning played about his limbs at every stir and he appeared in it ghastly, silvery, fish-like. He remained as mute as a fish too. He made no motion to get out of the water either. It was inconceivable that he should not attempt to come on board and strangely troubling to suspect that perhaps he did not want to. And my first words were prompted by just that

troubled incertitude. What's the matter? I asked in my ordinary tone, speaking down to the face upturned exactly under mine. Cramp, it answered, no louder. Then, slightly anxious, I say, no need to call anyone. I was not going to, I said. Are you alone on deck? Yes. I had somehow the impression that he was on the point of letting go the ladder to

swim away beyond my ken, mysterious as he came. But for the moment this being, appearing as if he had risen from the bottom of the sea, it was certainly the nearest land to the ship, wanted only to know the time. I told him, and he, down there, tentatively, I suppose your captain's turned in? I'm sure he isn't, I said. He seemed to struggle with himself, for I heard something like a low bitter

murmur of doubt. What's the good? His next words came out with a hesitating effort. Look here, my man, could you call him out quietly? I thought the time had come to declare myself. I am the captain. I heard a, by Jove, whispered at the level of the water. The phosphorescence flashed in the swirl of the water all about his limbs. His other hand seized the ladder. My name's Leggatt. The voice was calm

and resolute, a good voice. The self-possession of that man had somehow induced a corresponding state in myself. It was very quietly that I remarked, you must be a good swimmer. Yes, I've been in the water practically since nine o'clock. The question for me now is whether I am to let go this ladder and go on swimming till I sink from exhaustion, or to come on board here. I felt

this was no mere formula of desperate speech, but a real alternative in the view of a strong soul. I should have gathered from this that he was young. Indeed, it is only the young who were ever confronted by such clear issues. But at the time it was pure intuition on my part. A mysterious communication was established already between us two, in the face of that silent, dark and tropical

sea. I was young too, young enough to make no comment. The man in the water began suddenly to climb up the ladder, and I hastened away from the rail to fetch some clothes. Before entering the cabin, I stood still, listening in the lobby at the foot of the stairs. A faint snore came through the closed door of the chief mate's room. The second mate's door was on the hook, but the darkness

in there was absolutely soundless. He too was young and could sleep like a stone. Remained the steward, but he was not likely to wake up before he was caught. I got a sleeping suit out of my room, and coming back on deck, saw the naked man from the sea sitting on the main hatch, glimmering white in the darkness, his elbows on his knees, and his head in his hands. In a moment he had concealed his

damp body in a sleeping suit of the same gray stripe pattern as the one I was wearing, and followed me like my double on the poop. Together we moved right aft, barefooted, silent. What is it? I asked in a deadened voice, taking the lighted lamp out of the binnacle and raising it to his face. An ugly business. He had rather regular

features. A good mouth, light eyes under somewhat heavy, dark eyebrows, a smooth square forehead, no growth on his cheeks, a small brown moustache and a well-shaped round chin. His expression was concentrated, meditative under the inspecting light of the lamp I held up to his face, such as a man thinking hard in solitude might wear. My sleeping suit was just right for his size. A well-knit

young fellow of twenty-five at most, he caught his lower lip with the edge of white, even teeth. Yes, I said, replacing the lamp in the binnacle. The warm, heavy tropical night closed upon his head again. There's a ship over there, he murmured. Yes, I know, the Sephora. Did you know

of us? Hadn't the slightest idea. I'm the mate of her. He paused and corrected himself. I should say I was. Aha, something wrong? Yes, very wrong indeed. I've killed a man. What do you mean? Just now? No, on the passage, weeks ago, thirty-nine south. When I say a man, fit of temper, I suggested confidently. The shadowy, dark

head, like mine, seemed to nod imperceptibly above the ghostly grey of my sleeping suit. It was, in the night, as though I had been faced by my own reflection in the depths of a sombre and immense mirror. A pretty thing to have to own up to for a Conway boy, murmured my double distinctly. You're a Conway boy. I am, he said, as if startled.

Then, slowly, perhaps you too. It was so, but being a couple of years older, I had left before he joined. After a quick interchange of dates, a silence fell, and I thought suddenly of my absurd mate with his terrific whiskers and the bless my soul, you don't say so type of intellect. My double gave me an inkling of his thoughts by saying,

My father's a parson in Norfolk. Do you see me before a judge and jury on that charge? For myself, I can't see the necessity. There are fellows that are an angel from heaven, and I'm not that. He was one of those creatures that are just simmering all the time with a silly sort of wickedness, miserable devils that have no business to live at all. He

wouldn't do his duty and wouldn't let anybody else do theirs. But what's the good of talking? You know well enough the sort of ill-conditioned snarl and cur. He appealed to me as if our experiences had been as identical as our clothes. And I knew well enough the pestiferous danger of such a character where there are no means of legal repression.

And I knew well enough also that my double there was no homicidal ruffian. I did not think of asking him for details, and he told me the story roughly in brusque, disconnected sentences. I needed no more. I saw it all going on as though I were myself inside that other sleeping suit. It happened while we were setting a reefed forcille at dusk.

Reefed forcille. You understand the sort of weather. The only sail we had left to keep the ship running. So you may guess what it had been like for days. Anxious sort of job that. He gave me some of his cursed insolence at the sheet. I tell you I was overdone with this terrific weather that seemed to have no end to it. Terrific, I tell you,

and a deep ship. I believe the fellow himself was half crazed with funk. It was no time for gentlemanly reprieve, so I turned round and I felled him like an ox. He up and at me. We closed just as the awful sea made for the ship. All hands saw it coming and took to the rigging, but I had him by the throat and went on shaking him like a rat, the men above

us yelling, Look out, look out! And a crash as if the sky had fallen on my head. They say that for over ten minutes hardly anything was to be seen of the ship. Just the three masts and a bit of the focille head and of the poop all awash, driving along in a smother of foam. It was a miracle that they found us, jammed together behind the four bits. It's

clear that I meant business because I was holding him by the throat still when they picked us up. He was black in the face. It was too much for them. It seems they rushed us aft together, gripped as we were, screaming, Murder! like a lot of lunatics, and broke into the cuddy. And the ship, running for her life, touch and go all the time, any

minute, alas, in a sea fit to turn your hair grey, only you're looking at it. I understand that the skipper, too, started raving like the rest of them. The man had been deprived of sleep for more than a week, and to have this sprung on him at the height of a furious gale nearly drove him out of his mind. I wonder they didn't fling me overboard after getting

the carcass of their precious shipmate out of my fingers. They had rather a job to separate us, I've been told. A sufficiently fierce story to make an old judge and a respectable jury sit up a bit. The first thing I heard when I came to myself was the maddening howl of that endless gale, and on that the voice of the old man. He was hanging on to

my bunk, staring into my face out of his sour wester. Mr Leggert, you have killed a man. You can act no longer as chief mate of this ship. He, scared to subdue his voice, made it sound monotonous. He rested a hand on the end of the skylight to steady himself with, and all that time did not stir a limb as far as I could

see. Nice little tale for a quiet tea party, he concluded in the same tone. One of my hands too rested on the end of the skylight. Neither did I stir a limb so far as I knew. We stood less than a foot from each other. It occurred to me that if old blessed my soul, you don't say so, were to put his head up the companion and catch sight of us, he would

think he was seeing double, or imagine himself come upon a scene of weird witchcraft, the strange captain having a quiet confabulation by the wheel with his own grey ghost. I became very much concerned to prevent anything of the sort. I heard the others soothing undertone. My father's a parson in Norfolk, it said. Evidently he had forgotten he

had told me this important fact before. Truly a nice little tale. You had better slip down into my stateroom now, I said, moving off stealthily. My double followed my movements, our bare feet made no sound. I let him come in, closed the door with care, and after giving a call to the second mate, returned on deck for my relief.

Not much sign of any wind yet, I remarked when he approached. No, sir, not much, he assented sleepily in his hoarse voice, with just enough deference, no more, and barely suppressing a yawn. Well, that's all you have to look out for, you've got your orders. Yes, sir. I paced a turn or two on the poop and saw him take up his position face

forward with his elbow in the rat lines of the mizzen rigging before I went below. The mate's faint snoring was still going on peacefully. The cuddy lamp was burning over the table on which stood a vase with flowers, a polite attention from the ship's provision merchant, the last flowers we should see for the next three months at the very least.

Two bunches of bananas hung from the beam symmetrically, one on each side of the rudder casing. Everything was as before in the ship, except that two of her captain's sleeping suits were simultaneously in use, one motionless in the cuddy, the other keeping very still in the captain's stateroom. It must be explained here that my cabin had the form of a

capital L, the door being within the angle and opening into the short part of the letter. A couch was to the left, the bed placed to the right. My writing desk and the chronometer's table faced the door, but anyone opening it, unless he stepped right inside, had no view of what I call the long or vertical part of the letter. It contained some lockers

surmounted by a bookcase, and a few clothes, a thick jacket or two, caps, oil skin coat and suchlike, hung on hooks. There was at the bottom of that part a door opening into my bathroom, which could be entered also directly from the saloon, but that way was never used. The mysterious arrival had discovered the advantage of this particular shape. Entering

my room, lighted strongly by a big bulkhead lamp swung on gimbals above my writing desk, I did not see him anywhere till he stepped out quietly from behind the coats hung in the recessed part. I heard somebody moving about and went in there at once, he whispered. I too spoke under my breath. Nobody's likely to come in here without

knocking and getting permission. He nodded. His face was thin and the sunburn faded as though he had been ill. And no wonder. He had been, I heard presently, kept under arrest in his cabin for nearly seven weeks. But there was nothing sickly in his eyes or in his expression. He was not a bit like me, really. Yet as we stood leaning over my bed place,

whispering side by side, with our dark heads together and our backs to the door, anybody bold enough to open it stealthily would have been treated to the uncanny sight of a double captain, busy talking in whispers with his other self. But all this doesn't tell me how you came to hang onto our side ladder,

I inquired, in the hardly audible murmurs we used after he had told me something more of the proceedings on board the Sephora once the bad weather was over. When we sighted Java Head, I had had time to think all those matters out several times over. I had six weeks of doing nothing else, and with only an hour or so every evening for a tramp on

the quarter deck. He whispered, his arms folded on the side of my bed place, staring through the open port. And I could imagine perfectly the manner of this thinking out, a stubborn, if not a steadfast operation, something of which I should have been perfectly incapable. I reckoned it would be dark before we closed with the land, he

continued, so low that I had to strain my hearing, near as we were to each other, shoulder, touching shoulder almost. So I asked to speak to the old man. He always seemed very sick when he came to see me, as if he could not look me in the face. You know, that fossil saved the ship. She was too deep to have run long under bare poles. And it was

I that managed to set it for him. Anyway, he came. When I had him in my cabin, he stood by the door looking at me as if I had the halter around my neck already. I asked him right away to leave my cabin door unlocked at night while the ship was going through Sunda straits. There would be the Java coast within two or three miles

off Anjia Point. I wanted nothing more. I've had a prize for swimming my second year in the Conway. I can believe it. I breathed out. God only knows why they locked me in every night. To see some of their faces, you'd have thought they were afraid I'd go about at night strangling people. Am I a murdering brute? Do I look it? By Jove, if I

had been, he wouldn't have trusted himself like that into my room. You'll say I might have chucked him aside and bolted out there and then. It was dark already. Well, no. And for the same reason, I wouldn't think of trying to smash the door. It would have been a rush to stop me at the noise. And I did not mean to get into a confounded

scrimmage. Somebody else might have got killed, for I would not have broken out, only to get chucked back. And I did not want any more of that work. He refused, looking more sick than ever. He was afraid of the men and also of that old second mate of his who had been sailing with him for years, a grey-headed old humbug. And his steward too had

been with him devil knows how long, 17 years or more, a dogmatic sort of loafer who hated me like poison just because I was the chief mate. No chief mate ever made more than one voyage in the Sephora, you know. Those two old chaps rent the ship. Devil only knows what the skipper wasn't afraid of. All his nerve went to pieces altogether in that

hellish spell of bad weather we had, of what the law would do to him, of his wife, perhaps. Oh yes, she's on board, though I don't think she would have meddled. She would have been only too glad to have me out of the ship in any way. The brand of cane business, don't you see? That's all right. I was ready enough to go off wandering on the face of the

earth, and that was price enough to pay for an able of that sort. Anyhow, he wouldn't listen to me. This thing must take its course. I represent the law here. He was shaking like a leaf. So you won't? No. Then I hope you will be able to sleep on that, I said, and turned my back on him. I wonder that you can, cries he, and locks the door. Well, after that,

I couldn't. Not very well. That was three weeks ago. We've had a slow passage through the Jarva Sea, drifted about Karamata for ten days. When we anchored here, they thought I suppose it was all right. The nearest land, and that's five miles, is the ship's destination. The console would soon set about catching me, and there would have been no object in

bolting to these islets there. I don't suppose there's a drop of water on them. I don't know how it was. But tonight, that steward, after bringing me my supper, went out to let me eat it, and left the door unlocked. And I ate it. All there was, too. After I had finished, I strolled out on the quarter-deck. I don't know that I meant to do

anything. A breath of fresh air was all I wanted, I believe. Then a sudden temptation came over me. I kicked off my slippers and was in the water before I had made up my mind fairly. Somebody heard the splash, and they raised an awful a la balou. He's gone. Lower the boats. He's committed suicide. No, he's swimming. Certainly I was swimming. It's

not so easy for a swimmer like me to commit suicide by drowning. I landed on the nearest islet before the boat left the ship's side. I heard them pulling about in the dark, hailing and so on, but after a bit they gave up. Everything quieted down, and the anchorage became as still as death. I sat down on a stone and began to think. I felt

certain they would start searching for me at daylight. There was no place to hide on those stony things, and if there had been, what would have been the good? But now I was clear of that ship. I was not going back. So after a while I took off all my clothes, tied them up in a bundle with a stone inside, and dropped them in the deep water on the

outer side of that islet. That was suicide enough for me. Let them think what they liked, but I didn't mean to drown myself. I meant to swim till I sank, but that's not the same thing. I struck out for another of these little islands, and it was from that one that I first saw yaw riding light. Something to swim for. I went on easily, and on

the way I came upon a flat rock a foot or two above water. In the daytime, I dare say, you might make it out with a glass from your poop. I scrambled up on it and rested myself for a bit. Then I made another start. That last spell must have been over a mile. His whisper was getting fainter and fainter, and all the time he stared straight out

through the porthole in which there was not even a star to be seen. I had not interrupted him. There was something that made comment impossible in his narrative, or perhaps in himself. A sort of feeling, a quality, which I can't find a name for. And when he ceased, all I found was a futile whisper. So you swam for our light? Yes,

straightforward. It was something to swim for. I couldn't see any stars low down because the coast was in the way, and I couldn't see the land either. The water was like glass. One might have been swimming in a confounded thousand feet deep cistern with no place for scrambling out anywhere, but what I didn't like was the notion of

swimming round and round like a crazed bullock before I gave out. And as I didn't mean to go back. No. Do you see me being hauled back, stark naked, off one of these little islands by the scruff of the neck and fighting like a wild beast? Somebody would have got killed for certain, and I did not want any of that. So I went on. Then your

ladder. Why didn't you hail the ship, I asked, a little louder. He touched my shoulder lightly. Lazy footsteps came right over our heads and stopped. The second mate had crossed from the other side of the poop and might have been hanging over the rail for all we knew. He couldn't hear us talking goody. My double breathed into my very ear

anxiously. His anxiety was an answer, a sufficient answer to the question I had put to him. An answer containing all the difficulty of that situation. I closed the porthole quietly to make sure. A louder word might have been overheard. Who's that? He whispered then. My second mate, but I don't know much more of that fellow than

you do. And I told him a little about myself. I had been appointed to take charge while I least expected anything of the sort, not quite a fortnight ago. I didn't know either the ship or the people. Hadn't had the time in port to look about me or size anybody up. And as to the crew, all they knew was that I was appointed to take the

ship home. For the rest, I was almost as much of a stranger on board as himself, I said. And at the moment, I felt it most acutely. I felt that it would take very little to make me a suspect person in the eyes of the ship's company. He had turned about meantime, and we, the two strangers in the ship, faced each other in identical attitudes.

Your ladder, he murmured after a silence. Who'd have thought of finding a ladder hanging over a ship in a night anchored out here? I felt just then a very unpleasant faintness. After the life I've been leading for nine weeks, anybody would have got out of condition. I wasn't capable of swimming round as far as your rudder chains. And

lo, and behold, there was a ladder to get hold of. After I gripped it, I said to myself, what's the good? When I saw a man's head looking over, I thought I would swim away presently and leave him, shouting in whatever language it was. I didn't mind being looked at. I liked it. And then you speaking to me so quietly as if you had expected me,

made me hold on a little longer. It had been a confoundedly lonely time, I don't mean while swimming. I was glad to talk a little to somebody that didn't belong to the Sephora. As to asking for the captain, that was a mere impulse. It could have been no use with all the ship knowing about me and the other people pretty certain to be around here in the

morning. I don't know. I wanted to be seen, to talk with somebody, before I went on. I don't know what I would have said. Fine night, isn't it, or something of that sort. Do you think they will be round here presently, I asked with some incredulity. Quite likely, he said faintly. He looked extremely haggard all of a sudden. His head rolled on his

shoulders. Hmm, we shall see then. Meantime, get into that bed, I whispered. Want help? There. It was a rather high bed place with a set of drawers underneath. This amazing swimmer really needed the lift I gave him by seizing his leg. He tumbled in, rolled over on his back, and flung one arm across his eyes. And then, with his face nearly

hidden, he must have looked exactly as I used to look in that bed. I gazed upon my other self for a while before drawing across carefully the two green surge curtains which ran on a brass rod. I thought for a moment of pinning them together for greater safety, but I sat down on the couch and once there I felt unwilling to rise and hunt for a pin.

I would do it in a moment. I was extremely tired, in a peculiarly intimate way, by the strain of stealthiness, by the effort of whispering, and the general secrecy of this excitement. It was three o'clock by now, and I had been on my feet since nine, but I was not sleepy. I could not have gone to sleep. I sat there, fagged out,

looking at the curtains, trying to clear my mind of the confused sensation of being in two places at once, and greatly bothered by an exasperating knocking in my head. It was a relief to discover suddenly that it was not in my head at all, but on the outside of the door. Before I could collect myself, the words, come in, were out of my mouth,

and the steward entered with a tray, bringing in my morning coffee. I had slept, after all, and I was so frightened that I shouted, this way, I'm here, steward, as though he had been miles away. He put down the tray on the table next to the couch, and only then said, very quietly, I can see you are here, sir. I felt him give me a keen

look, but I dared not meet his eye just then. He must have wondered why I had drawn the curtains of my bed before going to sleep on the couch. He went out, hooking the door open, as usual. I heard the crew washing decks above me. I knew I would have been told at once if there had been any wind. Calm, I thought, and I was

doubly vexed. Indeed, I felt a duel more than ever. The steward reappeared suddenly in the doorway. I jumped up from the couch so quickly that he gave a start. What do you want here? Close your ports, sir, they're washing decks. It is closed, I said, reddening.

Very well, sir. But he did not move from the doorway, and returned my stare in an extraordinary equivocal manner for a time. Then his eyes wavered, all his expression changed, and in a voice unusually gentle, almost coaxingly, may I come in to take the empty cup away, sir?

Of course. I turned my back on him while he popped in and out. Then I unhooked and closed the door, and even pushed the bolt. This sort of thing could not go on very long. The cabin was as hot as an oven, too. I took a peep at my double and discovered that he had not moved. His arm was still over his eyes, but his chest heaved, his

hair was wet, his chin glistened with perspiration. I reached over him and opened the port. I must show myself on deck, I reflected. Of course, theoretically, I could do what I liked, with no one to say nay to me within the whole circle of the horizon, but to lock my

cabin door and take the key away, I did not dare. Directly I put my head out of the companion, I saw the group of my two officers, the second mate barefooted, the chief mate in long, indy rubber boots, near the break of the poop, and the steward half way down the poop ladder, talking to them eagerly. He happened to catch sight of me and

dived, the second ran down on the main deck, shouting some order or other, and the chief mate came to meet me, touching his cap. There was a sort of curiosity in his eye that I did not like. I don't know whether the steward had told them that I was queer only, or downright drunk, but I know the man meant to have a good look at me.

I watched him coming with a smile, which as he got into point-blank range, took effect and froze his very whiskers. I did not give him time to open his lips. Square the yards by lifts and braces before their hands go to breakfast. It was the first particular order I had given on board that ship, and I

stayed on deck to see it executed too. I had felt the need of asserting myself without loss of time. That sneering young cub got taken down a peg or two on that occasion, and I also seized the opportunity of having a good look at the face of every foremasked man as they filed past me to go to the after-braces. At breakfast time, eating nothing

myself, I presided with such frigid dignity that the two mates were only too glad to escape from the cabin as soon as decency permitted, and all the time the dual working of my mind distracted me almost to the point of insanity. I was constantly watching myself, my secret self, as dependent on my actions as my own personality, sleeping in

that bed, behind that door which faced me as I sat at the head of the table. It was very much like being mad, only it was worse because one was aware of it. I had to shake him for a solid minute, but when at last he opened his eyes it was in the full possession of his senses with an inquiring

look. "'O's well so far,' I whispered. Now you must vanish into the bathroom.' He did so, as noiseless as a ghost, and then I rang for the steward, and facing him boldly, directed him to tidy up my stateroom while I was

having my bath and be quick about it. As my tone admitted of no excuses, he said, "'Here, sir,' and ran off to fetch his dust-pan and brushes. I took a bath and did most of my dressing, splashing and whistling, softly, for the steward's edification, while the secret sharer of my life stood drawn up, bolt upright in that little space,

his face looking very sunken in daylight, his eyelids lowered under the stern dark line of his eyebrows, drawn together by a slight frown. When I left him there to go back to my room, the steward was finishing dusting. I sent for the mate and engaged him in some insignificant conversation. It was, as it were, trifling with the terrific character

of his whiskers, but my object was to give him an opportunity for a good look at my cabin. And then I could at last shut, with a clear conscience, the door of my stateroom and get my double back into the recessed part. There was nothing else for it. He had to sit still on a small folding stool, half smothered by the heavy coats hanging there. We listened to

the steward going into the bathroom out of the saloon, filling the water bottles there, scrubbing the bath, setting things to rights, whisk, bang, clatter, out again into the saloon, turn the key, click. Such was my scheme for keeping my second self invisible. Nothing better could be contrived under the circumstances.

And there we sat, I at my writing desk, ready to appear busy with some papers, he behind me, out of sight of the door. It would not have been prudent to talk in daytime, and I could not have stood the excitement of that queer sense of whispering to myself. Now and then, glancing over my shoulder, I saw him far back there,

sitting rigidly on the low stool, his bare feet close together, his arms folded, his head hanging on his breast, and perfectly still. Anybody would have taken him for me. I was fascinated by it myself. Every moment I had to glance over my shoulder. I was looking at him when a voice outside the door said,

beg pardon, sir. Well, I kept my eyes on him. And so when the voice outside the door announced, there's a ship coming our way, sir, I saw him give a start, the first movement he had made for hours. But he did not raise his bowed head. All right, get the ladder over. I hesitated. Should I whisper something to him? But what? His

immobility seemed to have been never disturbed. What could I tell him he did not know already? Finally, I went on deck.