"Well," said Honey judicially, "I know just how you feel. I could have
killed the boys for joshing me the way they did. I was sure. I was
certain I heard a woman laugh that night. And, by God, I did hear it.
Whenever I contradict myself, something rises up and tells me I lie. But
- ." His radiant brown smile crumpled his brown face. "Of course, I
didn't hear it. I couldn't have heard it. And so I guess you didn't see
the peroxide you speak of. And yet if you Punch me in the jaw, I'll know
exactly how you feel." His face uncrumpled, smoothed itself out to his
rare look of seriousness." The point of it is that we're all a little
touched in the bean. I figure that you and I are alike in some things.
That's why we've always hung together. And all this queer stuff takes us
two the same way. Remember that psychology dope old Rand used to pump
into us at college? Well, our psychologies have got all twisted up by a
recent event in nautical circles and we're seeing things that aren't
there and not seeing things that are there."
"Honey," said Billy, "that's all right. But I want you to understand me
and I don't want you, to make any mistake. I saw a girl."
"And don't forget this," answered Honey. "I heard one."
Billy made no allusion to any of this with the other three men. But for
the rest of the day, he had a return of his gentle good humor. Honey's
spirits fairly sizzled.
That night Frank Merrill suddenly started out of sleep with a yelled,
"What was that?"
"What was what?" everybody demanded, waking immediately to the panic in
his voice.
"That cry," he explained breathlessly, "didn't you hear it?" Frank's
eyes were brilliant with excitement; he was pale.
Nobody had heard it. And Ralph Addington and Pete Murphy, cursing
lustily, turned over and promptly fell asleep again. But Billy Fairfax
grew rapidly more and more awake. "What sort of a cry?" he asked. Honey
Smith said nothing, but he stirred the fire into a blaze in preparation
for a talk.
"The strangest cry I ever heard, long-drawn-out, wild - eerie's the word
for it, I guess," Frank Merrill said. As he spoke, he peered off into
the darkness. "If it were possible, I should say it was a woman's
voice."
The three men walked away from the camp, looked off into every direction
of the starlit night. Nowhere was there sign or sound of life.