It was very still in there; still as death. Then he heard a shuffle of
feet and the captain's voice "All right. Coming." He leaned his back
against the bulkhead as you see a drunken man sometimes propped up
against a wall, half doubled up. In that attitude the captain found him,
when he came out, pulling the door to after him quickly. At once Anthony
let his eyes run all over the cabin. Powell, without a word, clutched
his forearm, led him round the end of the table and began to justify
himself. "I couldn't stop him," he whispered shakily. "He was too quick
for me. He drank it up and fell down." But the captain was not
listening. He was looking down at Mr. Smith, thinking perhaps that it
was a mere chance his own body was not lying there. They did not want to
speak. They made signs to each other with their eyes. The captain
grasped Powell's shoulder as if in a vice and glanced at Mrs. Anthony's
cabin door, and it was enough. He knew that the young man understood
him. Rather! Silence! Silence for ever about this. Their very glances
became stealthy. Powell looked from the body to the door of the dead
man's state-room. The captain nodded and let him go; and then Powell
crept over, hooked the door open and crept back with fearful glances
towards Mrs. Anthony's cabin. They stooped over the corpse. Captain
Anthony lifted up the shoulders.
Mr. Powell shuddered. "I'll never forget that interminable journey
across the saloon, step by step, holding our breath. For part of the way
the drawn half of the curtain concealed us from view had Mrs. Anthony
opened her door; but I didn't draw a free breath till after we laid the
body down on the swinging cot. The reflection of the saloon light left
most of the cabin in the shadow. Mr. Smith's rigid, extended body looked
shadowy too, shadowy and alive. You know he always carried himself as
stiff as a poker. We stood by the cot as though waiting for him to make
us a sign that he wanted to be left alone. The captain threw his arm
over my shoulder and said in my very ear: "The steward'll find him in the
morning."
"I made no answer. It was for him to say. It was perhaps the best way.
It's no use talking about my thoughts. They were not concerned with
myself, nor yet with that old man who terrified me more now than when he
was alive. Him whom I pitied was the captain. He whispered. "I am
certain of you, Mr. Powell. You had better go on deck now. As to me
. . . " and I saw him raise his hands to his head as if distracted. But his
last words before we stole out that cabin stick to my mind with the very
tone of his mutter--to himself, not to me: "No! No! I am not going to stumble now over that corpse."