The door was locked on the outside.
I was a moment or two in grasping the fact. I shook it carefully
to see if it had merely caught, and then, incredulous, I put my
weight to it. It refused to yield. The silence outside was absolute.
I felt my way back to the window. It was open, but was barred with
iron, and, even without that, too small for my shoulders. I listened
for the mate. It was still dark, and so not yet time for the watch to
change. Singleton would be on duty, and he rarely came aft. There
was no sound of footsteps.
I lit a match and examined the lock. It was a simple one, and as my
idea now was to free myself without raising an alarm, I decided to
unscrew it with my pocket-knife. I was still confused, but inclined
to consider my imprisonment a jest, perhaps on the part of Charlie
Jones, who tempered his religious fervor with a fondness for practical
joking.
I accordingly knelt in front of the lock and opened my knife. I was
in darkness and working by touch. I had extracted one screw, and,
with a growing sense of satisfaction, was putting it in my pocket
before loosening a second, when a board on which I knelt moved under
my knee, lifted, as if the other end, beyond the door, had been
stepped on. There was no sound, no creak. Merely that ominous
lifting under my knee. There was some one just beyond the door.
A moment later the pressure was released. With a growing horror of
I know not what, I set to work at the second screw, trying to be
noiseless, but with hands shaking with excitement. The screw fell
out into my palm. In my haste I dropped my knife, and had to grope
for it on the floor. It was then that a woman screamed--a low,
sobbing cry, broken off almost before it began. I had got my knife
by that time, and in desperation I threw myself against the door.
It gave way, and I fell full length on the main cabin floor. I was
still in darkness. The silence in the cabin was absolute. I could
hear the steersman beyond the chart-room scratching a match.
As I got up, six bells struck. It was three o'clock.
Vail's room was next to the pantry, and forward. I felt my way to
it, and rapped.
"Vail," I called. "Vail!"
His door was open an inch or so. I went in and felt my way to his
bunk. I could hear him breathing, a stertorous respiration like
that of sleep, and yet unlike. The moment I touched him, the sound
ceased, and did not commence again. I struck a match and bent over
him.