I had no difficulty _now_.
There _were_ too many shadows. Yet, shadows or no shadows, I realised
that for my own peace of mind, I must settle, once and for all, whether
the thing I had seemed to see stepping aboard out of the ocean, had been
a reality, or simply a phantom, as you might say, of my imagination. My
reason said it was nothing more than imagination, a rapid dream--I must
have dozed; but something deeper than reason told me that this was not
so. I put it to the test, and went straight in amongst the shadows--
There was nothing.
I grew bolder. My common sense told me I must have fancied it all. I
walked over to the mainmast, and looked behind the pinrail that partly
surrounded it, and down into the shadow of the pumps; but here again was
nothing. Then I went in under the break of the poop. It was darker under
there than out on deck. I looked up both sides of the deck, and saw that
they were bare of anything such as I looked for. The assurance was
comforting. I glanced at the poop ladders, and remembered that nothing
could have gone up there, without the Second Mate or the Time-keeper
seeing it.
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