Previous - next
an air of ineffable conceit. "I tell you there are no such eyes as mine
this side of the Persian Gulf. Look under the bed."
'Of course I stooped instantly. I defy anybody not to have done so.
"What can you see?" he asked. "Nothing," I said, feeling awfully ashamed
of myself. He scrutinised my face with wild and withering contempt.
"Just so," he said, "but if I were to look I could see--there's no eyes
like mine, I tell you." Again he clawed, pulling at me downwards in his
eagerness to relieve himself by a confidential communication. "Millions
of pink toads. There's no eyes like mine. Millions of pink toads. It's
worse than seeing a ship sink. I could look at sinking ships and smoke
my pipe all day long. Why don't they give me back my pipe? I would get
a smoke while I watched these toads. The ship was full of them. They've
got to be watched, you know." He winked facetiously. The perspiration
dripped on him off my head, my drill coat clung to my wet back: the
afternoon breeze swept impetuously over the row of bedsteads, the stiff
folds of curtains stirred perpendicularly, rattling on brass rods, the
covers of empty beds blew about noiselessly near the bare floor all
along the line, and I shivered to the very marrow. The soft wind of the
tropics played in that naked ward as bleak as a winter's gale in an old
barn at home. "Don't you let him start his hollering, mister," hailed
from afar the accident case in a distressed angry shout that came
ringing between the walls like a quavering call down a tunnel. The
clawing hand hauled at my shoulder; he leered at me knowingly. "The ship
was full of them, you know, and we had to clear out on the strict Q.T.,"
he whispered with extreme rapidity. "All pink. All pink--as big as
mastiffs, with an eye on the top of the head and claws all round their
ugly mouths. Ough! Ough!" Quick jerks as of galvanic shocks disclosed
under the flat coverlet the outlines of meagre and agitated legs; he let
go my shoulder and reached after something in the air; his body trembled
tensely like a released harp-string; and while I looked down, the
spectral horror in him broke through his glassy gaze. Instantly his face
of an old soldier, with its noble and calm outlines, became decomposed
before my eyes by the corruption of stealthy cunning, of an abominable
caution and of desperate fear. He restrained a cry--"Ssh! what are they
doing now down there?" he asked, pointing to the floor with fantastic
precautions of voice and gesture, whose meaning, borne upon my mind in a
lurid flash, made me very sick of my cleverness. "They are all asleep,"
I answered, watching him narrowly. That was it. That's what he wanted
to hear; these were the exact words that could calm him. He drew a long
breath. "Ssh! Quiet, steady. I am an old stager out here. I know them
brutes. Bash in the head of the first that stirs. There's too many of
them, and she won't swim more than ten minutes." He panted again. "Hurry
Previous - next
