was a joke, a cruel joke. My mates of the forecastle, by some unknown
means, were frightening me. Twice already must they have seen me run
aft. My cheeks burned with shame. In fancy I could hear the smothered
chuckling and laughter even then going on in the forecastle. I began to
grow angry. Jokes were all very well, but this was carrying the thing
too far. I was the youngest on board, only a youth, and they had no
right to play tricks on me of the order that I well knew in the past had
made raving maniacs of men and women. I grew angrier and angrier, and
resolved to show them that I was made of sterner stuff and at the same
time to wreak my resentment upon them. If the thing appeared again, I
made my mind up that I would go up to it--furthermore, that I would go up
to it knife in hand. When within striking distance, I would strike. If
a man, he would get the knife-thrust he deserved. If a ghost, well, it
wouldn't hurt the ghost any, while I would have learned that dead men did
rise up.

Now I was very angry, and I was quite sure the thing was a trick; but
when the thing appeared a third time, in the same spot, long, attenuated,
and wavering, fear surged up in me and drove most of my anger away. But
I did not run. Nor did I take my eyes from the thing. Both times
before, it had vanished while I was running away, so I had not seen the
manner of its going. I drew my sheath-knife from my belt and began my
advance. Step by step, nearer and nearer, the effort to control myself
grew more severe. The struggle was between my will, my identity, my very
self, on the one hand, and on the other, the ten thousand ancestors who
were twisted into the fibres of me and whose ghostly voices were
whispering of the dark and the fear of the dark that had been theirs in
the time when the world was dark and full of terror.

I advanced more slowly, and still the thing wavered and flitted with