But once darkness had fallen,
Blodgett was a different man. He became nervously wakeful. His eyes
distended and his face lighted with strange animation. He walked hither and
yon. He fairly arched his neck. And sometimes, when some ordinary incident
struck his peculiar humor, he would throw back his head, open his great
mouth, and utter a screech of wild laughter for all the world like the yowl
of a tom-cat.
On that particular night he walked the forecastle, keeping close to the
bulwarks, till the rest of us assembled by the rigging and watched him with
a kind of fascination. After a time he saw us gathered there and came over
to where we were. His eyes were large and his wrinkled features twitched
with eagerness. He seemed very old; he had traveled to the farthest lands.
"Men," he cried in his thin, windy voice, "yonder's the moon."
The moon indeed was there. There was no reason to gainsay him. He stood
with it over his left shoulder and extended his arms before him, one
pointing somewhat to the right, the other to the left. "The right hand is
the right way," he cried, "but the left we'll never leave."
We stared at the man and wondered if he were mad.
"No," he said, smiling at our puzzled glances, "we'll never leave the
left.
Pages:
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96