“’He’s ready to face any of his friends with that thing.  But he will have no use for it.  There will be no occasion to quarrel about these dollars here,’ thought Davidson, getting on board quietly.  He never paused to look if there was anybody about the decks.  As a matter of fact, most of his crew were on shore, and the rest slept, stowed away in dark corners.

“He had his plan, and he went to work methodically.

“He fetched a lot of clothing from below and disposed it in his hammock in such a way as to distend it to the shape of a human body; then he threw over all the light cotton sheet he used to draw over himself when sleeping on deck.  Having done this, he loaded his two revolvers and clambered into one of the boats the Sissie carried right aft, swung out on their davits.  Then he waited.

“And again the doubt of such a thing happening to him crept into his mind.  He was almost ashamed of this ridiculous vigil in a boat.  He became bored.  And then he became drowsy.  The stillness of the black universe wearied him.  There was not even the lapping of the water to keep him company, for the tide was out and the Sissie was lying on soft mud.  Suddenly in the breathless, soundless, hot night an argus pheasant screamed in the woods across the stream.  Davidson started violently, all his senses on the alert at once.

“The candle was still burning in the house.  Everything was quiet again, but Davidson felt drowsy no longer.  An uneasy premonition of evil oppressed him.

“‘Surely I am not afraid,’ he argued with himself.

“The silence was like a seal on his ears, and his nervous inward impatience grew intolerable.  He commanded himself to keep still.  But all the same he was just going to jump out of the boat when a faint ripple on the immensity of silence, a mere tremor in the air, the ghost of a silvery laugh, reached his ears.

“Illusion!

“He kept very still.  He had no difficulty now in emulating the stillness of the mouse—­a grimly determined mouse.  But he could not shake off that premonition of evil unrelated to the mere danger of the situation.  Nothing happened.  It had been an illusion!

“A curiosity came to him to learn how they would go to work.  He wondered and wondered, till the whole thing seemed more absurd than ever.

“He had left the hanging lamp in the cabin burning as usual.  It was part of his plan that everything should be as usual.  Suddenly in the dim glow of the skylight panes a bulky shadow came up the ladder without a sound, made two steps towards the hammock (it hung right over the skylight), and stood motionless.  The Frenchman!

“The minutes began to slip away.  Davidson guessed that the Frenchman’s part (the poor cripple) was to watch his (Davidson’s) slumbers while the others were no doubt in the cabin busy forcing off the lazarette hatch.