I scarcely know how to put it; but, if I'm right in what I
think, it's the ship herself that's the cause of everything."
"What do you mean?" he asked, in a puzzled voice. "Do you mean that the
ship _is_ haunted, after all?"
"No!" I answered. "I've just told you I didn't. Wait until I've finished
what I was going to say."
"All right!" he said.
"About that thing you saw tonight," I went on. "You say it came over the
lee rail, up on to the poop?"
"Yes," he answered.
"Well, the thing I saw, _came up out of the sea, and went back into the
sea_."
"Jove!" he said; and then: "Yes, go on!"
"My idea is, that this ship is open to be boarded by those things," I
explained. "What they are, of course I don't know. They look like men--
in lots of ways. But--well, the Lord knows what's in the sea. Though we
don't want to go imagining silly things, of course. And then, again, you
know, it seems fat-headed, calling anything silly. That's how I keep
going, in a sort of blessed circle. I don't know a bit whether they're
flesh and blood, or whether they're what we should call ghosts or
spirits.
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