rushes and stirrings, and sometimes far away would come some sound, a soft booming or a slender cry, such as were never heard on land. He did not know what made these voices, if it were wind or water, or some creature. Perhaps he had known in his boyhood, for it seemed he recalled them.
When he went to the cabin, leaving the ship on her course, with the rope from the tiller tied to his waist, he knew that he would sleep as he had not slept on the beds of the earth.
The sea too was full of the dead, but they were a long way down. Theirs was a clean finish among the mouths of fishes.
He thought of mermaids swimming alongside, revealing their breasts, and laughing at him that he did not get up and look at them.
He slept.
Jeluc dreamed he was walking down the stone pier out of the village. It was starlight, night, and the pale ship was tied there at the pier’s end as she had been. But between him and the ship stood a tall gaunt figure. It was not Fatty or the gray man, for as Jeluc came near, he saw it wore a black robe, like a priest’s, and a hood concealed all its skull face but for a broad white forehead.
As he got closer, Jeluc tried to see the being’s face, but could not. Instead a white thin hand came up and plucked from him a silver coin.
It was Charon, the Ferryman of the Dead, taking his fee.
Jeluc opened his eyes.
He was in the cabin of the ship called La Dame, and all was still, only the music of the water and the wind, and through the window he saw the stars sprinkle by.
The rope at his waist gave its little tug, now this way, now that, as it should. All was well.
Jeluc shut his eyes.
He imagined his lids weighted by silver coins. He heard a soft voice singing, a woman’s voice. It was very high and sweet, not kind, no lullaby.
In the morning he was tired, although his sleep had gone very deep. But it had been a long walk he had had to the village.
He saw to the lines, baiting them carefully, and went over the ship, but she was as she should be. He cooked some more cakes, and ate a little of the greasy pork. The ale was flat and bitter, but he had tasted far worse.
He stood all morning by the tiller.
The weather was brisk but calm enough, and at this rate he would sight the first of the islands by the day after tomorrow. He might be sorry at that, but then he need not linger longer. He could be off again.
In the afternoon he drowsed. And when he woke, the sun was over to the west like a bullet in a dull dark rent in the sky.
Jeluc glimpsed something. He turned, and saw three thin men with ragged dripping hair, who stood on the far side of the cabin on the after-deck. They were quite still, colourless and dumb. Then they were gone.
Perhaps it had been some formation of the clouds, some shadow cast for a moment by the sail. Or his eyes, playing tricks.
But he said aloud to the ship, “Are you haunted, my dear? Is that your secret?”
When he checked his lines, he had caught nothing, but there was no law that said he must.
The wind dropped low and, as yesterday, the clouds dissolved when the darkness fell, and he saw the stars blaze out like diamonds, but no moon.
It seemed to him he should have seen her, the moon, but maybe some little overcast had remained, or he had made a mistake.
He concocted a stew with the pork and some garlic and apple, ate, smoked his pipe, listened to the noises of the sea.
He might be anywhere. A hundred miles from any land. He had seen no birds all day.
Jeluc went to the cabin, tied the rope, and lay down. He slept at once. He was on the ship, and at his side sat one of his old comrades, a man who had died from a cannon shot two years before. He kept his hat over the wound shyly, and said to Jeluc, “Where are you bound? The islands? Do you think you’ll get there?”
“This lady’ll take me there,” said Jeluc.
“Oh, she’ll take you somewhere.”
Then the old soldier showed him the compass, and the needle had gone mad, reared up and poked