e gruesome stories I had heard of weird visitants, and ghostly beings,
heard but seldom seen, on the East Anglian meres and broads? Then again
came the remembrance of the shriek or cry I had fancied I heard earlier
in the night, and with a shudder I thought: "How ghastly if it should be
the drowned body of him whose cry I had heard, knocking thus in grisly
fashion to be taken in before the tide carried it away to sea!"

So far had my excited imagination carried me, when again the yacht shook
with the thud of something striking her, and a great revulsion of relief
came over me as I recognised the dull sound of wood striking wood, this
time farther aft, and I laughed aloud at my cowardice.

No doubt a log of driftwood, bumping its way along the side of the
yacht, as logs will, as the ebbing tide carried it seawards.

However, by this time I had lighted the lamp; so, to satisfy my still
perturbed though much ashamed mind, I thrust my feet into sea-boots and
my body into a pea-jacket over my clothes, and went on deck, lamp in
hand, to see what my unwelcome visitor really was.

Through the mist, dimly illumined by the lamp, I made out the shadowy
outline of a boat, drifting slowly towards the stern of the yacht, and
occasionally bumping gently against her side.

Another moment or two and the derelict would have vanished into the
night. But the long boathook lay at my feet along the bulwark, and,
almost instinctively, I caught it up with one hand, whilst setting the
lamp down with the other, ran to the stern and made a wild grab in the
dark towards where I thought she would be.

The hook caught, and I hauled my prize alongside; stooping down, I felt
for the painter, which I naturally expected to find trailing in the
water, thinking the boat had broken loose from somewhere through
carelessness in making her fast.

To my surprise it was coiled up _inside_ the bows. Puzzling over this, I
made the end fast to a cleat on the yacht, then took the lamp and turned
the light over the side, so that it shone fairly into the boat.

Then, for the second time that night, my pulses beat fast, and my scalp
tingled with something approaching fear, and I wished I had a friend on
board with me.

It seemed as if my foolish idea of a dead body asking for compassion
was coming true. For there was a huddled-up form lying on the bottom of
the boat, its head inclined half on and half off the stern thwart, its
whole attitude suggestive of the