stand anything, but this being alone. There's a good chap, don't pretend
you don't understand. Tell me what it all means. What is this horrible
man that I've twice seen? You know you know something, and I believe
you're afraid to tell anyone, for fear of being laughed at. Why don't
you tell me? You needn't be afraid of my laughing."

He stopped, suddenly. For the moment, I said nothing in reply.

"Don't treat me like a kid, Jessop!" he exclaimed, quite passionately.

"I won't," I said, with a sudden resolve to tell him everything. "I need
someone to talk to, just as badly as you do."

"What does it all mean, then?" he burst out. "Are they real? I always
used to think it was all a yarn about such things."

"I'm sure I don't know what it all means, Tammy," I answered. "I'm just
as much in the dark, there, as you are. And I don't know whether they're
real--that is, not as we consider things real. You don't know that I saw
a queer figure down on the maindeck, several nights before you saw that
thing up here."

"Didn't you see this one?" he cut in, quickly.

"Yes," I answered.

"Then, why did you pretend not to have?" he said, in a reproachful
voice. "You don't know what a state you put me into, what with my being
certain that I had seen it and then you being so jolly positive that
there had been nothing. At one time I thought I was going clean off my