Again I slept the black sleep; but it passed into other visions, so
that in one of them I seemed to be lying awake in my own cabin, and the
man Paolo stood over me, looking straight into my eyes; and when I
would have risen up to question him I was powerless, held still in
every limb, living, yet without life or speech--a horrid dream from
which I seemed to rouse myself only at the touch of something cold upon
my outstretched hand; and then at last I opened my eyes and saw, during
the veriest reality of time, that others looked down into mine. I saw
them for some small part of a second, yet in the faint light that came
from the port I recognised the face and the form, and was certain of
them; for the man who had been watching me as I slept was Paolo.

A quick sense of danger waked me thoroughly then. I put my hand to the
tap of the electric light and the white rays flooded the cabin. But the
cabin was empty and Roderick's dog sat by my trunk, and had, I could
see, been licking my hand as I lay.

I knew not how to make out the meaning of it; but I was trembling from
the horror of the dream, and went above in my flannels. It was dawn
then; and day was coming up out of the sea, cold and bearing mists,
which lay low over the long restful waves. Dan was aft on the
quarter-deck, and the first officer was on the bridge, but I looked
into Paolo's bunk, and he slept there, in so heavy a sleep that I began
to doubt altogether the truth of what I had believed. How could this
man have left my cabin as he had done, and yet now be berthed in his
own? The dream had cheated me, as dreams often do.

But more sleep was not to be thought of. I fell to talk with Dan, and
paced the deck with him, asking what was his opinion of our new second
mate.

He scratched his head before he answered, and looked wise, as he loved
to look--

"Lord, sir, it's not for me to be spoutin' about them as is above me;
but you ask me a fair question, and I'll give you a fair answer. In
course, I ain't the party to be thinking ill of any man--not Dan, which
is plain and English, though some as is scholars say it should be
Dan'el; but what I do know, I know--you won't be contradictin' that,
will you?"

I told him to get on with it; but he was woefully deliberate, cutting
tobacco to chew, and hitching himself up before he was under weigh
again.

"Now," he said at last, "the fact about our second is this, in my
opinion--which ain't mine, but the whole of '