I was lying under the droop of a dingey, making
the Sede boy call on all his gods for wind, with interludes of smoke,
when he chucked his deities and tobacco, and, pointing, shouted, 'Man!
man!'
"I snatched a spy-glass. Sure enough, there was a boat on the water. It
was moving ever so slowly. It seemed to stop, and we saw something lifted
and waved, and then all was still again. I got a boat's crew together,
and away we went in that deadly smother. An hour's row and we got within
hail of the derelict--as one of the crew said, 'feelin' as if the
immortal life was jerked out of us.' The dingey lay there on the glassy
surface, not a sign of life about her. Yet I had, as I said, seen
something waved. The water didn't even lap its sides. It was ghostly, I
can tell you. Our oars licked the water; they didn't attack it. Now, I'm
going to tell you something, Marmion, that'll make you laugh. I don't
think I've got any poetry in me, but just then I thought of some verses I
learned when I was a little cove at Wellington--a devilishly weird thing.
It came to me at that moment like a word in my ear. It made me feel
awkward for a second.
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