Читать книгу Dick Rodney; or, The Adventures of an Eton Boy онлайн

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"At such a time this seemed strange. Why were they not all a-bed?

"I looked at my watch. The hour was eleven; so, believing that the figure I had seen was merely the effect of fancy, I descended to the cabin, once more turned in, and fell asleep, the more readily that I had sniffed the night breeze which came from the land and sea together.

"But I could not have been sleeping more than ten minutes when I awoke with a nervous start, and with the same undefinable sensation of terror. Again I looked into the cabin, and there, in the moonlight, stood the same man, or figure of a man, near the table!

"Anger now replaced my first emotion of alarm; and starting from bed, I hurled an iron marlin spike at the person, exclaiming—

"'Take that, whoever you are!'

"The man seemed to fall just as the light in the cabin lamp sank low. I rushed toward him, and then, as his prostrate form turned slowly round, the dim light of the waning moon fell steadily through the cabin window on his face; and oh, what saw I then?