*****

At that moment, or, perhaps, the moment after, I became aware of Ransome standing in the cabin.  Something in his expression startled me.  It had a meaning which I could not make out.  I exclaimed:  “Somebody’s dead.”

It was his turn then to look startled.

“Dead?  Not that I know of, sir.  I have been in the forecastle only ten minutes ago and there was no dead man there then.”

“You did give me a scare,” I said.

His voice was extremely pleasant to listen to.  He explained that he had come down below to close Mr. Burns’ port in case it should come on to rain.  “He did not know that I was in the cabin,” he added.

“How does it look outside?” I asked him.

“Very black, indeed, sir.  There is something in it for certain.”

“In what quarter?”

“All round, sir.”

I repeated idly:  “All round.  For certain,” with my elbows on the table.

Ransome lingered in the cabin as if he had something to do there, but hesitated about doing it.  I said suddenly: 

“You think I ought to be on deck?”

He answered at once but without any particular emphasis or accent:  “I do, sir.”

I got to my feet briskly, and he made way for me to go out.  As I passed through the lobby I heard Mr. Burns’ voice saying: 

“Shut the door of my room, will you, steward?” And Ransome’s rather surprised:  “Certainly, sir.”

I thought that all my feelings had been dulled into complete indifference.  But I found it as trying as ever to be on deck.  The impenetrable blackness beset the ship so close that it seemed that by thrusting one’s hand over the side one could touch some unearthly substance.  There was in it an effect of inconceivable terror and of inexpressible mystery.  The few stars overhead shed a dim light upon the ship alone, with no gleams of any kind upon the water, in detached shafts piercing an atmosphere which had turned to soot.  It was something I had never seen before, giving no hint of the direction from which any change would come, the closing in of a menace from all sides.

There was still no man at the helm.  The immobility of all things was perfect.  If the air had turned black, the sea, for all I knew, might have turned solid.  It was no good looking in any direction, watching for any sign, speculating upon the nearness of the moment.  When the time came the blackness would overwhelm silently the bit of starlight falling upon the ship, and the end of all things would come without a sigh, stir, or murmur of any kind, and all our hearts would cease to beat like run-down clocks.

It was impossible to shake off that sense of finality.  The quietness that came over me was like a foretaste of annihilation.  It gave me a sort of comfort, as though my soul had become suddenly reconciled to an eternity of blind stillness.

The seaman’s instinct alone survived whole in my moral dissolution.  I descended the ladder to the quarter-deck.  The starlight seemed to die out before reaching that spot, but when I asked quietly:  “Are you there, men?” my eyes made out shadow forms starting up around me, very few, very indistinct; and a voice spoke:  “All here, sir.”  Another amended anxiously: