I thought of calling Ally Bazan, who slept by me on
the cabin floor, but it seemed to me at the time that
if I did not keep that figure in sight it would elude
me again, and, besides, if I went back in the cabin
I was afraid that I would bolt the door and remain
under the bedclothes till morning. I was afraid
to go on with the adventure, but I was much more afraid
to go back.
So I crept forward over the deck of the sloop.
The “ha’nt” had its back toward
me, fumbling with the ends of the jib halyards.
I could hear the creak of new ropes as it undid the
knot, and the sound was certainly substantial and
commonplace. I was so close by now that I could
see every outline of the shape. It was precisely
as it had appeared on the crosstrees of the Idaho,
only, seen without perspective, and brought down to
the level of the eye, it lost its exaggerated height.
It had been kneeling upon the deck. Now, at last,
it rose and turned about, the end of the halyards
in its hand. The light of the earliest dawn fell
squarely on the face and form, and I saw, if you please,
Ally Bazan himself. His eyes were half shut,
and through his open lips came the sound of his deep
and regular breathing.
At breakfast the next morning I asked, “Ally
Bazan, did you ever walk in your sleep.”
“Aye,” he answered, “years ago,
when I was by wye o’ being a lad, I used allus
to wrap the bloomin’ sheets around me. An’
crysy things I’d do the times. But the
’abit left me when I grew old enough to tyke
me whisky strite and have hair on me fyce.”
I did not “explain away” the ghost in
the crosstrees either to Ally Bazan or to the other
two Black Crows. Furthermore, I do not now refer
to the Island of Paa in the hearing of the trio.
The claims and title of Norway to the island have
long since been made good and conceded—even
by the State Department at Washington—and
I understand that Captain Petersen has made a very
pretty fortune out of the affair.
I. FELIPE
As young Felipe Arillaga guided his pony out of the
last intricacies of Pacheco Pass, he was thinking
of Rubia Ytuerate and of the scene he had had with
her a few days before. He reconstructed it now
very vividly. Rubia had been royally angry, and
as she had stood before him, her arms folded and her
teeth set, he was forced to admit that she was as
handsome a woman as could be found through all California.
There had been a time, three months past, when Felipe
found no compulsion in the admission, for though betrothed
to Buelna Martiarena he had abruptly conceived a violent
infatuation for Rubia, and had remained a guest upon
her rancho many weeks longer than he had intended.
For three months he had forgotten Buelna entirely.
At the end of that time he had remembered her—had
awakened to the fact that his infatuation for Rubia
was infatuation, and had resolved to end the
affair and go back to Buelna as soon as it was possible.
