He made light of the affair, but later took me aside and told me a
curious story of an apparition which had appeared to him.

"It was a crescent of light," he said, "and it glittered through
the darkness there to the left as I lay in my berth."

"A reflection from something on the deck?"

Deeping smiled, uneasily.

"Possibly," he replied; "but it was very sharply defined. Like
the blade of a scimitar," he added.

I stared at him, my curiosity keenly aroused. "Does any explanation
suggest itself to you?" I said.

"Well," he confessed, "I have a theory, I will admit; but it is
rather going back to the Middle Ages. You see, I have lived in the
East a lot; perhaps I have assimilated some of their superstitions."

He was oddly reticent, as ever. I felt convinced that he was
keeping something back. I could not stifle the impression that the
clue to these mysteries lay somewhere around the invisible
Mohammedan party.

"Do you know," said Bell to me, one morning, "this trip's giving me
the creeps. I believe the damned ship's haunted! Three bells in the
middle watch last night, I'll swear I saw some black animal crawling
along the deck, in the direction of the forward companion-way."