The contents of the boat revealed the truth of what I had said.
The boat was in confusion. Its cover had been thrown back, and tins
of biscuit, bailers, boathooks and extra rowlocks were jumbled
together in confusion. The barecas lay on its side, and its plug
had been either knocked or drawn out.
McWhirter was for turning to inspect the boat; but I ordered him
sternly to watch the deck. He was inclined to laugh at my caution,
which he claimed was a quality in me he had not suspected. He
lounged against the rail near me, and, in spite of his chaff, kept
a keen enough lookout.
The barecas of water were lashed amidships. In the bow and stern
were small air-tight compartments, and in the stern was also a
small locker from which the biscuit tins had been taken. I was
about to abandon my search, when I saw something gleaming in the
locker, and reached in and drew it out. It appeared to be an
ordinary white sheet, but its presence there was curious. I turned
the light on it. It was covered with dark-brown stains.
Even now the memory of that sheet turns me ill. I shook it out,
and Mac, at my exclamation, came to me. It was not a sheet at all,
that is, not a whole one. It was a circular piece of white cloth,
on which, in black, were curious marks--a six-pointed star
predominating. There were others--a crescent, a crude attempt to
draw what might be either a dog or a lamb, and a cross. From edge
to edge it was smeared with blood.
Of what followed just after, both McWhirter and I are vague. There
seemed to be, simultaneously, a yell of fury from the rigging
overhead, and the crash of a falling body on the deck near us. Then
we were closing with a kicking, biting, screaming thing, that bore
me to the ground, extinguishing the little electric flash, and that,
rising suddenly from under me, had McWhirter in the air, and almost
overboard before I caught him. So dazed were we by the onslaught
that the thing--whatever it was--could have escaped, and left us
none the wiser. But, although it eluded us in the darkness, it did
not leave. It was there, whimpering to itself, searching for
something--the sheet. As I steadied Mac, it passed me. I caught
at it. Immediately the struggle began all over again. But this
time we had the advantage, and kept it. After a battle that seemed
to last all night, and that was actually fought all over that part
of the deck, we held the creature subdued, and Mac, getting a hand
free, struck a match.
It was Charlie Jones.
That, after all, is the story. Jones was a madman, a homicidal
maniac of the worst type. Always a madman, the homicidal element
of his disease was recurrent and of a curious nature.