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The last two I don't just rightly call to mind at this moment, but the first is woman. When I meets up with a feemale woman on my trail, I sheers off some prompt, Mr. Dixon; I sheers off. An' Hardenberg," he added irrelevantly, "would a-took an' married this woman, so he would. Yes, an' Strokher would, too." "Was there another man?" I asked. "No," said Bunt.
And there issued from this a curious consequence. He, the very one who had never seen the haunting, was also the very one to unsettle what little common sense yet remained to Hardenberg and Strokher. He never allowed the subject to be ignored never lost an opportunity of referring to the doom that o'erhung the vessel.
It was so still that the drip of steam from some loosened pipe far below was plainly audible, and it sounded in that lifeless, silent grayness like God knows what a death tick. "You see," said the mate, speaking just above a whisper, "there's no mistake about it. She is moving this way." "Oh, a current, of course," Strokher tried to say cheerfully, "sets her toward us."
They were Strokher, the tall, blond, solemn, silent Englishman; Hardenberg, the American, dry of humour, shrewd, resourceful, who bargained like a Vermonter and sailed a schooner like a Gloucester cod-fisher; and in their company, as ever inseparable from the other two, came the little colonial, nicknamed, for occult reasons, "Ally Bazan," a small, wiry man, excitable, vociferous, who was without fear, without guile and without money.
And there, far behind us, in the shadow of the twilight, loomed the Other Ship again, desolate, lonely beyond words. We were leaving her rapidly astern. Strokher and I stood looking at her till she dwindled to a dot. Then Strokher said: "She's on post again."
The Company drank steadily, and Strokher, listening from the schooner's quarterdeck, heard the shouting and the songs faintly above the wash and lapping under the counter. Two hours had passed since the moment he guessed that the feast had been laid. A third went by. He grew uneasy. There was no cessation of the noise of carousing. He even fancied he heard pistol shots.
"Ally Bazan an' me, an' Strokher an' Hardenberg, we's all leanin' over the fence a-watchin'; when all to once I ups an' groans some sad. The party in the hinder end o' the boat bein' feemale. "'Ain't we never goin' to git shut of 'em? says I; but the words ain't no more'n off my teeth when Strokher pipes up: "'It's she, says he, gaspin' as though shot hard.
But at last we agreed to say nothing to the others for the time being. Just after breakfast, however, we two had a few words by the wheel on the quarterdeck. Ally Bazan and Strokher were forward.
No Yank ain't never took no dust from aft a Englisher, whether it were war, walkin'-matches, or women. "'But they's a Englisher, sings out Strokher, 'not forty miles from here as can nick the nose o' a freckled Yank if so be occasion require. "Now ain't that plum foolish-like," observed Bunt, philosophically.
We joined Strokher, and as I came up the others were asking: "Where? Where?" And there, before he had pointed, I saw we all of us saw And I heard Hardenberg's teeth come together like a spring trap, while Ally Bazan ducked as though to a blow, muttering: "Gord 'a' mercy, what nyme do ye put to' a ship like that?"
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