I suppose I must have sat there, shivering and yawning, for about an hour, when, tired of inactivity, I got up and went and leaned over the side of the vessel.  The sound of the water gurgling and lapping by was so soothing that I began to doze.

I was recalled to my senses by a smothered cry from Bill, and, running to him, I found him staring to port in an intense and uncomfortable fashion.  At my approach, he took one hand from the wheel, and gripped my arm so tightly that I was like to have screamed with the pain of it.

“Jack,” said he, in a shaky voice, “while you was away something popped its head up, and looked over the ship’s side.”

“You’ve been dreaming,” said I, in a voice which was a very fair imitation of Bill’s own.

“Dreaming,” repeated Bill, “dreaming!  Ah, look there!”

He pointed with outstretched finger, and my heart seemed to stop beating as I saw a man’s head appear above the side.  For a brief space it peered at us in silence, and then a dark figure sprang like a cat on to the deck, and stood crouching a short distance away.

A mist came before my eyes, and my tongue failed me, but Bill let off a roar, such as I have never heard before or since.  It was answered from below, both aft and for’ard, and the men came running up on deck just as they left their beds.

“What’s up?” shouted the skipper, glancing aloft.

For answer, Bill pointed to the intruder, and the men, who had just caught sight of him, came up and formed a compact knot by the wheel.

“Come over the side, it did,” panted Bill, “come over like a ghost out of the sea.”

The skipper took one of the small lamps from the binnacle, and, holding it aloft, walked boldly up to the cause of alarm.  In the little patch of light we saw a ghastly black-bearded man, dripping with water, regarding us with unwinking eyes, which glowed red in the light of the lamp.

“Where did you come from?” asked the skipper.

The figure shook its head.

“Where did you come from?” he repeated, walking up, and laying his hand on the other’s shoulder.

Then the intruder spoke, but in a strange fashion and in strange words.  We leaned forward to listen, but, even when he repeated them, we could make nothing of them.

“He’s a furriner,” said Roberts.

“Blest if I’ve ever ’eard the lingo afore,” said Bill.  “Does anybody rekernize it?”

Nobody did, and the skipper, after another attempt, gave it up, and, falling back upon the universal language of signs, pointed first to the man and then to the sea.  The other understood him, and, in a heavy, slovenly fashion, portrayed a man drifting in an open boat, and clutching and clambering up the side of a passing ship.  As his meaning dawned upon us, we rushed to the stern, and, leaning over, peered into the gloom, but the night was dark, and we saw nothing.