reading. Partly for this reason I proceeded to move into his bunk. My
other reason was pride. I saw the sailors were superstitious, and by
this act I determined to show that I was braver than they. I would cap
my proved equality by a deed that would compel their recognition of my
superiority. Oh, the arrogance of youth! But let that pass. The
sailors were appalled by my intention. One and all, they warned me that
in the history of the sea no man had taken a dead man's bunk and lived to
the end of the voyage. They instanced case after case in their personal
experience. I was obdurate. Then they begged and pleaded with me, and
my pride was tickled in that they showed they really liked me and were
concerned about me. This but served to confirm me in my madness. I
moved in, and, lying in the dead man's bunk, all afternoon and evening
listened to dire prophecies of my future. Also were told stories of
awful deaths and gruesome ghosts that secretly shivered the hearts of all
of us. Saturated with this, yet scoffing at it, I rolled over at the end
of the second dog-watch and went to sleep.

At ten minutes to twelve I was called, and at twelve I was dressed and on
deck, relieving the man who had called me. On the sealing grounds, when
hove to, a watch of only a single man is kept through the night, each man
holding the deck for an hour. It was a dark night, though not a black
one. The gale was breaking up, and the clouds were thinning. There
should have been a moon, and, though invisible, in some way a dim,
suffused radiance came from it. I paced back and forth across the deck
amidships. My mind was filled with the event of the day and with the
horrible tales my shipmates had told, and yet I dare to say, here and
now, that I was not afraid. I was a healthy animal, and furthermore,
intellectually, I agreed with Swinburne that dead men rise up never. The
Bricklayer was dead, and that was the end of it. He would rise up
never--at least, never on the deck of the _Sophie Sutherland_. Even then