I am a brave man.  I dare to say so; for in fear and trembling I crept up the companion-way and went back to the spot from which I had first seen the thing.  It had vanished.  My bravery was qualified, however.  Though I could see nothing, I was afraid to go for’ard to the spot where I had seen the thing.  I resumed my pacing up and down, and though I cast many an anxious glance toward the dread spot, nothing manifested itself.  As my equanimity returned to me, I concluded that the whole affair had been a trick of the imagination and that I had got what I deserved for allowing my mind to dwell on such matters.

Once more my glances for’ard were casual, and not anxious; and then, suddenly, I was a madman, rushing wildly aft.  I had seen the thing again, the long, wavering attenuated substance through which could be seen the fore-rigging.  This time I had reached only the break of the poop when I checked myself.  Again I reasoned over the situation, and it was pride that counselled strongest.  I could not afford to make myself a laughing-stock.  This thing, whatever it was, I must face alone.  I must work it out myself.  I looked back to the spot where we had tilted the Bricklayer.  It was vacant.  Nothing moved.  And for a third time I resumed my amidships pacing.

In the absence of the thing my fear died away and my intellectual poise returned.  Of course it was not a ghost.  Dead men did not rise up.  It 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.