Chapter 14

It is while coming back that I see into the cabin, and I halt. The Skipper is standing under the lamp holding out his hand for a cup of coffee. And Nicholas, the fears and imaginings of a volatile race blanching his wizened features, rocks unsteadily across the floor. The big man with the white hair, red face, and cold blue eyes, towers over him, those same eyes snapping with something that has nought to do with money-making or Brixton, something not mentioned in any Board of Trade regulations. And Nicholas, holding by the table, looks like a rat in a trap, shaking with the fear of sudden death. A word from the Skipper, and he turns and runs a zig-zag course for the door. He cannot see me in the darkness, but I hear him whinnying a song to steady his nerves:

"_Ess, a young maid's broken-'earted When a ship is outward bound._"

His face is pinched and drawn, his beady eyes move unceasingly, and I think of one who said, "His nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'e babbled of green fields."

* * * * *

As I go below to my berth again, striving with the door as with a strong man, there crackles and hisses a forked glare of lightning, an enormous whip driving the great white horses of the sea to madness. Onward they spring, phalanx after phalanx, while above the riot of their disintegration glints the faint yellow light of Fastnet. Far off to nor'ard, guarding Cape Clear, hidden at times by the mountainous water, veiled almost to obscurity by the flying spume, it flashes, a coastwise light. And on the eastern horizon--O wondrous sight to me!--the black pall has lifted a little from the tumbling waters, leaving a band of yellow moonlight with one green-flashing star.

Reaching my berth once more, the terror and delight of that last glimpse is upon me. In that strange yellow rift at midnight, backing the world of dark chaos, that star of palest green, I feel a thrill of the superhuman sense which renders Turner inexplicable to Balham, and stabs the soul with demoniac joy in the Steersman's Song.

One Bell, and the pen drops from my fingers. And so, until the day break and the shadows flee away, I shall be at my post. And in the morning there will be more to tell.

THE END

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:

Minor changes have been made to correct typesetter errors; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and intent.