Читать книгу The Complete Works of Algernon Blackwood. Novels, Short Stories, Horror Classics, Occult & Supernatural Tales, Plays онлайн

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Dr. Stahl, he then saw, had picked up the lamp and was bending over some mark upon the deck, examining a wide splash of wet upon which he directed the electric flash. The sense of revived antagonism between the men for the moment was strong, too strong for speech. O'Malley feeling half ashamed, yet realized that his action had been instinctive, and that another time he would do just the same. He would fight to the death any too close inspection, since such inspection included also now—himself.

The doctor presently looked up. His eyes shone keenly in the gleam of the lamp, but he was no longer agitated.

"There is too much water," he said calmly, as though diagnosing a case; "too much to permit of definite traces." He glanced round, flashing the beam about the decks. The other two had disappeared. They were alone. "It was outside the rail all the time, you see," he added, "and never quite reached the decks." He stooped down and examined the splash once more. It looked as though a wave had topped the scuppers and left a running line of foam and water. "Nothing to indicate its exact nature," he said in a whisper that conveyed something between uneasiness and awe, again turning the light sharply in every direction and peering about him. "It came to them—er—from the sea, though; it came from the sea right enough. That, at least, is positive." And in his manner was perhaps just a touch to indicate relief.