was putting it in my pocket before
loosening a second, when a board on which I knelt moved under my knee,
lifted, as if the other end, beyond the door, had been stepped on.
There was no sound, no creak. Merely that ominous lifting under my
knee. There was some one just beyond the door.

A moment later the pressure was released. With a growing horror of I
know not what, I set to work at the second screw, trying to be
noiseless, but with hands shaking with excitement. The screw fell out
into my palm. In my haste I dropped my knife, and had to grope for it
on the floor. It was then that a woman screamed--a low, sobbing cry,
broken off almost before it began. I had got my knife by that time,
and in desperation I threw myself against the door. It gave way, and I
fell full length on the main cabin floor. I was still in darkness.
The silence in the cabin was absolute. I could hear the steersman
beyond the chart-room scratching a match.

As I got up, six bells struck. It was three o'clock.

Vail's room was next to the pantry, and forward. I felt my way to it,
and rapped.

"Vail," I called. "Vail!"

His door was open an inch or so. I went in and felt my way to his
bunk. I could hear him breathing, a stertorous respiration like that
of sleep, and yet unlike. The moment I touched him, the sound ceased,
and did not commence again. I struck a match and bent over him.

He had been almost cut to pieces with an axe.

CHAPTER VI

IN THE AFTER HOUSE

The match burnt out, and I dropped it. I remember mechanically
extinguishing the glowing end with my heel, and then straightening to
such a sense of horror as I have never felt before or since. I groped
for the door; I wanted air, space, the freedom from lurking death of
the open deck.

I had been sleeping with my revolver beside me on the pantry floor.
Somehow or other I got back there and found it. I made an attempt to
find the switch for the cabin lights, and, failing, revolver in hand, I
ran into the chart-room and up the after companionway. Charlie Jones
was at the wheel, and by the light of a lantern I saw that he was
bending to the right, peering in at the chartroom window. He turned
when he heard me.

"What's wrong?" he asked. "I heard a yell a minute ago. Turner on the
rampage?" He saw my revolver then, and, letting go the wheel, threw up
both his hands. "Turn that gun away, you fool!"

I could hardly speak. I lowered the revolver and