Another Man to the Wheel
The had off. We were all and shaken, and I know I, for one, was some thoughts.
Suddenly, I the of the Second's whistle. Then his voice came along the deck:
"Another man to the wheel!"
"'e's singin' out for some one to go an' wheel," said Quoin, who had gone to the door to listen. "Yer'd 'urry up, Plummer."
"What's time?" asked Plummer, up and out his pipe. "Must be close on four bells, 'oo's next wheel is it?"
"It's all right, Plummer," I said, up from the on which I had been sitting. "I'll go along. It's my wheel, and it only wants a of minutes to four bells."
Plummer sat again, and I out of the fo'cas'le. Reaching the poop, I met Tammy on the side, up and down.
"Who's at the wheel?" I asked him, in astonishment.
"The Second Mate," he said, in a of voice. "He's waiting to be relieved. I'll tell you all about it as soon as I a chance."
I on to the wheel.
"Who's that?" the Second inquired.
"It's Jessop, Sir," I answered.
He gave me the course, and then, without another word, along the poop. On the break, I him call Tammy's name, and then for some minutes he was talking to him; though what he was saying, I not possibly hear. For my part, I was to know why the Second Mate had taken the wheel. I that if it were just a of on Tammy's part, he would not have of doing such a thing. There had been something happening, about which I had yet to learn; of this, I sure.
Presently, the Second Mate left Tammy, and to walk the weather of the deck. Once he came right aft, and, down, under the wheel-box; but a word to me. Sometime later, he the weather on to the main-deck. Directly afterwards, Tammy came up to the of the wheel-box.
"I've it again!" he said, with nervousness.
"What?" I said.
"That thing," he answered. Then he across the wheel-box, and his voice.
"It came over the rail—up out of the sea," he added, with an air of telling something unbelievable.
I more him; but it was too dark to see his with any distinctness. I husky. "My God!" I thought. And then I a to protest; but he cut me with a hopelessness.
"For God's sake, Jessop," he said, "do all that! It's no good. I must have someone to talk to, or I shall go dotty."
I saw how it was to any of ignorance. Indeed, really, I had it all along, and the on that very account, as you know.
"Go on," I said. "I'll listen; but you'd keep an for the
Second Mate; he may up any minute."
For a moment, he said nothing, and I saw him about the poop.
"Go on," I said. "You'd make haste, or he'll be up you're half-way through. What was he doing at the wheel when I came up to it? Why did he send you away from it?"
"He didn't," Tammy replied, his me. "I away from it."
"What for?" I asked.
"Wait a minute," he answered, "and I'll tell you the whole business. You know the Second Mate sent me to the wheel, after that—" He his forrard.
"Yes," I said.
"Well, I'd been here about ten minutes, or a of an hour, and I was about Williams, and trying to it all and keep the ship on her course, and all that; when, all at once, I to to loo'ard, and there I saw it over the rail. My God! I didn't know what to do. The Second Mate was on the of the poop, and I was here all by myself. I as if I were stiff. When it came me, I let go of the wheel, and and to the Second Mate. He of me and me; but I was so frightened, I couldn't say a word. I only keep on pointing. The Second me 'Where?' And then, all at once, I I couldn't see the thing. I don't know he saw it. I'm not at all he did. He just told me to well to the wheel, and stop making a of myself. I said out I wouldn't go. So he his whistle, and out for someone to come and take it. Then he ran and got of the wheel himself. You know the rest."
"You're sure it wasn't about Williams you you saw something?" I said, more to a moment to think, than I that it was the case.
"I you were going to to me, seriously!" he said, bitterly. "If you won't me; what about the the Second Mate saw? What about Tom? What about Williams? For sake! don't try to put me off like you did last time. I nearly with wanting to tell someone who would to me, and wouldn't laugh. I anything, but this being alone. There's a good chap, don't you don't understand. Tell me what it all means. What is this man that I've twice seen? You know you know something, and I you're to tell anyone, for of being laughed at. Why don't you tell me? You needn't be of my laughing."
He stopped, suddenly. For the moment, I said nothing in reply.
"Don't me like a kid, Jessop!" he exclaimed, passionately.
"I won't," I said, with a to tell him everything. "I need someone to talk to, just as as you do."
"What it all mean, then?" he out. "Are they real? I always used to think it was all a yarn about such things."
"I'm sure I don't know what it all means, Tammy," I answered. "I'm just as much in the dark, there, as you are. And I don't know they're real—that is, not as we real. You don't know that I saw a on the maindeck, nights you saw that thing up here."
"Didn't you see this one?" he cut in, quickly.
"Yes," I answered.
"Then, why did you not to have?" he said, in a voice. "You don't know what a you put me into, what with my being that I had it and then you being so positive that there had been nothing. At one time I I was going clean off my dot—until the Second Mate saw that man go up the main. Then, I that there must be something in the thing I was I'd seen."
"I thought, perhaps, that if I told you I hadn't it, you would think you'd been mistaken," I said. "I wanted you to think it was imagination, or a dream, or something of that sort."
"And all the time, you about that other thing you'd seen?" he asked.
"Yes," I replied.
"It was of you," he said. "But it wasn't any good."
He paused a moment. Then he on:
"It's terrible about Williams. Do you think he saw something, up aloft?"
"I don't know, Tammy," I said. "It's to say. It may have been only an accident." I to tell him what I thought.
"What was he saying about his pay-day? Who was he saying it to?"
"I don't know," I said, again. "He was always about taking a pay-day out of her. You know, he in her, on purpose, when all the others left. He told me that he wasn't going to be done out of it, for anyone."
"What did the other for?" he asked. Then, as the idea to him—"Jove! do you think they saw something, and got scared? It's possible. You know, we only joined her in 'Frisco. She had no 'prentices on the passage out. Our ship was sold; so they sent us here to come home."
"They may have," I said. "Indeed, from I've Williams say, I'm certain, he for one, or a more than we've any idea of."
"And now he's dead!" said Tammy, solemnly. "We'll be able to out from him now."
For a moments, he was silent. Then he off on another track.
"Doesn't anything in the Mate's watch?"
"Yes," I answered. "There's lately, that queer. Some of his have been talking about them. But he's too pig-headed to see anything. He just his chaps, and puts it all to them."
"Still," he persisted, "things to more in our watch than in his—I mean, things. Look at tonight."
"We've no proof, you know," I said.
He his head, doubtfully.
"I shall always going aloft, now."
"Nonsense!" I told him. "It may only have been an accident."
"Don't!" he said. "You know you don't think so, really."
I answered nothing, just then; for I very well that he was right.
We were for a of moments.
Then he spoke again:
"Is the ship haunted?"
For an I hesitated.
"No," I said, at length. "I don't think she is. I mean, not in that way."
"What way, then?"
"Well, I've a of a theory, that wise one minute, and the next. Of course, it's as likely to be all wrong; but it's the only thing that to me to fit in with all the we've had lately."
"Go on!" he said, with an impatient, movement.
"Well, I've an idea that it's nothing in the ship that's likely to us. I know how to put it; but, if I'm right in what I think, it's the ship herself that's the of everything."
"What do you mean?" he asked, in a puzzled voice. "Do you that the ship is haunted, after all?"
"No!" I answered. "I've just told you I didn't. Wait until I've what I was going to say."
"All right!" he said.
"About that thing you saw tonight," I on. "You say it came over the rail, up on to the poop?"
"Yes," he answered.
"Well, the thing I saw, came up out of the sea, and into the sea."
"Jove!" he said; and then: "Yes, go on!"
"My idea is, that this ship is open to be by those things," I explained. "What they are, of I don't know. They look like men— in of ways. But—well, the Lord what's in the sea. Though we don't want to go things, of course. And then, again, you know, it fat-headed, calling anything silly. That's how I keep going, in a of circle. I don't know a they're and blood, or they're what we should call or spirits."
"They can't be and blood," Tammy interrupted. "Where would they live? Besides, that one I saw, I I see through it. And this last one—the Second Mate would have it. And they would drown—"
"Not necessarily," I said.
"Oh, but I'm sure they're not," he insisted. "It's impossible—"
"So are ghosts—when you're sensible," I answered. "But I'm not saying they are and blood; though, at the same time, I'm not going to say out they're ghosts—not yet, at any rate."
"Where do they come from?" he asked, enough.
"Out of the sea," I told him. "You saw for yourself!"
"Then why don't other have them aboard?" he said. "How do you account for that?"
"In a way—though sometimes it cracky—I think I can, according to my idea," I answered.
"How?" he again.
"Why, I that this ship is open, as I've told you—exposed, unprotected, or you like to call it. I should say it's to think that all the of the material world are barred, as it were, from the immaterial; but that in some cases the may be down. That's what may have to this ship. And if it has, she may be to the of beings to some other of existence."
"What's her like that?" he asked, in a of tone.
"The Lord knows!" I answered. "Perhaps something to do with magnetic stresses; but you'd not understand, and I don't, really. And, I suppose, of me, I don't it's anything of the kind, for a minute. I'm not that way. And yet I don't know! Perhaps, there may have been some thing done of her. Or, again, it's a more likely to be something of anything I know."
"If they're then, they're spirits?" he questioned.
"I don't know," I said. "It's so hard to say what I think, you know. I've got a idea, that my head-piece to think good; but I don't my it."
"Go on!" he said.
"Well," I said. "Suppose the earth were by two of life.
We're one, and they're the other."
"Go on!" he said.
"Well," I said. "Don't you see, in a normal we may not be of the of the other? But they may be just as and material to them, as we are to us. Do you see?"
"Yes," he said. "Go on!"
"Well," I said. "The earth may be just as to them, as to us. I that it may have as material to them, as it has to us; but neither of us the other's realness, or the quality of in the earth, which was to the other. It's so difficult to explain. Don't you understand?"
"Yes," he said. "Go on!"
"Well, if we were in what I might call a healthy atmosphere, they would be our power to see or feel, or anything. And the same with them; but the more we're like this, the more and they to us. See? That is, the more we should able to their of materialness. That's all. I can't make it any clearer."
"Then, after all, you think they're ghosts, or something of that sort?" Tammy said.
"I it come to that," I answered. "I that, anyway, I don't think they're our ideas of and blood. But, of course, it's to say much; and, after all, you must that I may be all wrong."
"I think you ought to tell the Second Mate all this," he said. "If it's as you say, the ship ought to be put into the nearest port, and well burnt."
"The Second Mate couldn't do anything," I replied. "Even if he it all; which we're not he would."
"Perhaps not," Tammy answered. "But if you him to it, he might the whole to the Skipper, and then something might be done. It's not safe as it is."
"He'd only at again," I said, hopelessly.
"No," said Tammy. "Not after what's tonight."
"Perhaps not," I replied, doubtfully. And just then the Second Mate came on to the poop, and Tammy away from the wheel-box, me with a that I ought to do something.
