"
And while he enunciated the platitude I was uncomfortably aware that
that alien thing inside his skull was watching me, studying me.
In the cabin Captain West smoked a cigar and read the Bible. Miss
West did not appear, and I was grateful that to my sleeplessness the
curse of sea-sickness had not been added.
Without asking permission of anybody, Wada arranged a sleeping place
for himself in a far corner of the big after-room, screening the
corner with a solidly lashed wall of my trunks and empty book boxes.
It was a dreary enough day, no sun, with occasional splatters of rain
and a persistent crash of seas over the weather rail and swash of
water across the deck. With my eyes glued to the cabin ports, which
gave for'ard along the main deck, I could see the wretched sailors,
whenever they were given some task of pull and haul, wet through and
through by the boarding seas. Several times I saw some of them taken
off their feet and rolled about in the creaming foam. And yet,
erect, unstaggering, with certitude of weight and strength, among
these rolled men, these clutching, cowering ones, moved either Mr.
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