his mouth to my ear, as though fearing the very air might hear.  “It is here.  I know it now.  On the watch last night I saw It, like a man, tall and thin, and ghastly pale.  It was in the bows, and looking out.  I crept behind It, and gave it my knife, but the knife went through It, empty as the air.”  And as he spoke he took the knife and drove it savagely into space.  Then he went on, “But It is here, and I’ll find It.  It is in the hold, perhaps in one of those boxes.  I’ll unscrew them one by one and see.  You work the helm.”  And with a warning look and his finger on his lip, he went below.  There was springing up a choppy wind, and I could not leave the helm.  I saw him come out on deck again with a tool chest and lantern, and go down the forward hatchway.  He is mad, stark, raving mad, and it’s no use my trying to stop him.  He can’t hurt those big boxes, they are invoiced as clay, and to pull them about is as harmless a thing as he can do.  So here I stay and mind the helm, and write these notes.  I can only trust in God and wait till the fog clears.  Then, if I can’t steer to any harbour with the wind that is, I shall cut down sails, and lie by, and signal for help . . .

It is nearly all over now.  Just as I was beginning to hope that the mate would come out calmer, for I heard him knocking away at something in the hold, and work is good for him, there came up the hatchway a sudden, startled scream, which made my blood run cold, and up on the deck he came as if shot from a gun, a raging madman, with his eyes rolling and his face convulsed with fear.  “Save me!  Save me!” he cried, and then looked round on the blanket of fog.  His horror turned to despair, and in a steady voice he said, “You had better come too, captain, before it is too late.  He is there!  I know the secret now.  The sea will save me from Him, and it is all that is left!” Before I could say a word, or move forward to seize him, he sprang on the bulwark and deliberately threw himself into the sea.  I suppose I know the secret too, now.  It was this madman who had got rid of the men one by one, and now he has followed them himself.  God help me!  How am I to account for all these horrors when I get to port?  When I get to port!  Will that ever be?

4 August.—­Still fog, which the sunrise cannot pierce, I know there is sunrise because I am a sailor, why else I know not.  I dared not go below, I dared not leave the helm, so here all night I stayed, and in the dimness of the night I saw it, Him!  God, forgive me, but the mate was right to jump overboard.  It was better to die like a man.  To die like a sailor in blue water, no man can object.  But I am captain, and I must not leave my ship.  But I shall baffle this fiend or monster, for I shall tie my hands to the wheel when my strength begins to fail, and along with them I shall tie that which He, It, dare not touch.  And then, come good wind or foul, I