THE BOAT ROCKS

And now a quick exhilaration seized Tom; the tempest was over. It was a pity that Audry Ferris could not be there to feel the full force of his breezy air of emancipation. To see him come swaggering up out of the valley of the shadow. To take note of that careless, independent whistling of a song, which seemed to proclaim to the world, “I should worry.” But these things would keep. His spirit seemed likely to last a day or two—oh, goodness, yes.

He was just going to celebrate his emancipation by getting up and throwing those boisterous tin cans overboard when the boat lurched enough to cause him to keep his seat. Just in that moment his exhilaration was chilled by a blighting thought. If he did not tell, perhaps Audry would. The secret was between these two.

Presently something happened which startled him. Simultaneously with a lurch of the boat came a sound from within the cabin, a sound as of someone falling. Then the sliding-door rolled slowly open. A can rolled across the deck, making a clanking sound as it struck an iron cable cleat.

In the dim light within the cabin, Tom could see a hand; it seemed very white in the gathering darkness. It was on the floor and the arm extended past the opening, so that all Tom could see was just this hand and arm. It seemed to him as if the hand belonged to one crouching, and who had cautiously rolled the door open for him to enter.

He went in, then paused aghast at what he saw. If the hand had started the door, then it had been hospitably opened by a dead man. In the lurching of the boat the figure, apparently, had rolled out of the starboard bunk. It was in a sunken, half-sitting posture against the bunk. The head hung sideways, the glazed eyes leering at Tom as in ghastly welcome. He could not get it out of his startled senses that this thing had gotten out of the bunk, pushed the door open, and sat there on the floor in an affected attitude of subservient greeting. It seemed to say, “Here I am at your feet; walk in, won’t you?”

Tom was startled, agitated. But he was not panic-stricken. He laid the body decently upon the floor, crossways so it would not roll with the rocking of the boat. It was the body of a man under middle age, partly clothed. He had been for many days unshaven, and was in a pitiful state of emaciation. Tom thought he had been dead for only a day or two. He pulled some shreds of awning from across the port-holes, threw open the heavy brass-bound glass disks, and let in the fresh evening air and such light as the late twilight afforded.

He was too perturbed to see or think of anything outside the tragic circumstance of death, but a hasty glance about the cabin showed all too plainly that the boat had been the lonely refuge of this wretched, gaunt creature for many days. Whether anybody knew of his refuge Tom could not conjecture. He supposed that the owner was still abroad. No doubt the dead man had been fully cognizant of the measure of safety he enjoyed. Tom thought he might have died of consumption; he could not bear the thought that he had died of starvation.

The walls of the cabin were very much besmeared with soot from a smelly, filthy oil stove. There were a very few odds and ends of food. Fishing tackle lay about and an old crab net. It was the lonely tenant of the Goodfellow, and not boys, who had fished, probably in the shelter of the darkness.

On the little table a few papers were in a pasteboard box. An empty soup-can had been fastened to the slab by a tack driven through the bottom. In this stood a fountain pen. A bottle of ink had slid off on the floor. Among the papers was a queer pasteboard device, with a disk that turned; it was some kind of an elaborate weather chart. There were many clippings about the weather stuck on a nail in the bulkhead.

An unfinished manuscript of yellow paper was hanging in a large fish-hook also fastened to the bulkhead. Tom glanced at this, read a few lines, took it out into the better light of the cockpit and read more. When it was too dark to see he tiptoed into the chamber of death and sought amid the squalid disorder of alien paraphernalia for a lantern, but could find none. Nor could he find any matches. He thought these might be in the dead man’s pocket. He did not search for them. He folded the loose pages, put them in his pocket, and tiptoed out into the cockpit again. The moon was coming up full and glinting the water which still rippled, sometimes into whitecaps, in the fresh breeze. The threat of storm had passed. The night was clear and cool.

He rolled the little cabin door shut and fastened it. He picked up the cans which were rolling and clanking about the deck and cast them in the water. It was very still then. He could not remain here. Even the sound of his own footfalls on the deck startled him. He tiptoed to the rail, climbed over and into the little waiting, bobbing skiff, and rowed for the shore. Once away from the boat he was glad for the companionable clanking of the oar-locks; it was a good wholesome, cheery sound.

The port-holes of the Goodfellow were golden in the moonlight. The sordid, makeshift camp in the cabin must be bathed in the moonlight now, he thought. As he gazed back at the little cruiser it was hard to believe that in her cosy cabin, death, solemn, unexplained, held her solitary vigil.