McWhirter grew less gay.  The deserted decks of the ship, her tragic history, her isolation, the darkness, which my small flash seemed only to intensify, all had their effect on him.

“It’s got my goat,” he admitted.  “It smells like a tomb.”

“Don’t be an ass.”

“Turn the light over the side, and see if we fastened that boat.  We don’t want to be left here indefinitely.”

“That’s folly, Mac,” I said, but I obeyed him.  “The watchman’s boat is there, so we—­”

But he caught me suddenly by the arm and shook me.

“My God!” he said.  “What is that over there?”

It was a moment before my eyes, after the flashlight, could discern anything in the darkness.  Mac was pointing forward.  When I could see, Mac was ready to laugh at himself.

“I told you the place had my goat!” he said sheepishly.  “I thought I saw something duck around the corner of that building; but I think it was a ray from a searchlight on one of those boats.”

“The watchman, probably,” I said quietly.  But my heart beat a little faster.  “The watchman taking a look at us and gone for his gun.”

I thought rapidly.  If Mac had seen anything, I did not believe it was the watchman.  But there should be a watchman on board—­in the forward house, probably.  I gave Mac my revolver and put the light in my pocket.  I might want both hands that night.  I saw better without the flash, and, guided partly by the bow light, partly by my knowledge of the yacht, I led the way across the deck.  The forward house was closed and locked, and no knocking produced any indication of life.  The after house we found not only locked, but barred across with strips of wood nailed into place.  The forecastle was likewise closed.  It was a dead ship.

No figure reappearing to alarm him, Mac took the drawing out of his pocket and focused the flashlight on it.

“This cross by the mainmast,” he said “that would be where?”

“Right behind you, there.”

He walked to the mast, and examined carefully around its base.  There was nothing there, and even now I do not know to what that cross alluded, unless poor Schwartz—!

“Then this other one—­forward, you call it, don’t you?  Suppose we locate that.”

All expectation of the watchman having now died, we went forward on the port side to the approximate location of the cross.  This being in the neighborhood where Mac had thought he saw something move, we approached with extreme caution.  But nothing more ominous was discovered than the port lifeboat, nothing more ghostly heard than the occasional creak with which it rocked in its davits.

The lifeboat seemed to be indicated by the cross.  It swung almost shoulder-high on McWhirter.  We looked under and around it, with a growing feeling that we had misread the significance of the crosses, or that the sinister record extended to a time before the “she devil” of the Turner line was dressed in white and turned into a lady.