It took him a moment or so to seize the drift of the question. He
repeated slowly: 'Unusual . . . Oh, you mean for an elderly man to be the
second of a ship. I don't know. There are a good many of us who don't
get on. He didn't get on, I suppose.'
The other, his head bowed a little, had the air of listening with acute
attention.
"And now he has been taken to the hospital," he said.
"I believe so. Yes. I remember Captain Anthony saying so in the
shipping office."
"Possibly about to die," went on the old man, in his careful deliberate
tone. "And perhaps glad enough to die."
Mr. Powell was young enough to be startled at the suggestion, which
sounded confidential and blood-curdling in the dusk. He said sharply
that it was not very likely, as if defending the absent victim of the
accident from an unkind aspersion. He felt, in fact, indignant. The
other emitted a short stifled laugh of a conciliatory nature. The second
bell rang under the poop. He made a movement at the sound, but lingered.
"What I said was not meant seriously," he murmured, with that strange air
of fearing to be overheard. "Not in this case. I know the man."
The occasion, or rather the want of occasion, for this conversation, had
sharpened the perceptions of the unsophisticated second officer of the
Ferndale. He was alive to the slightest shade of tone, and felt as if
this "I know the man" should have been followed by a "he was no friend of
mine." But after the shortest possible break the old gentleman continued
to murmur distinctly and evenly:
"Whereas you have never seen him. Nevertheless, when you have gone
through as many years as I have, you will understand how an event putting
an end to one's existence may not be altogether unwelcome. Of course
there are stupid accidents. And even then one needn't be very angry.
What is it to be deprived of life? It's soon done. But what would you
think of the feelings of a man who should have had his life stolen from
him? Cheated out of it, I say!"
He ceased abruptly, and remained still long enough for the astonished
Powell to stammer out an indistinct: "What do you mean? I don't
understand." Then, with a low 'Good-night' glided a few steps, and sank
through the shadow of the companion into the lamplight below which did
not reach higher than the turn of the staircase.