At this point Miss Jennings arrived on deck, and Finn, with a shadowy fist mowing at his brow, stepped to the opposite rail, where his figure was easily distinguished by the stars he blotted out. ‘I hope your spirits are better,’ said Miss Laura. ‘I should be glad to turn the silent sailor of that wreck out of my memory; but my spirits are very well.’ ‘Wilfrid noticed your depression at table, but he attributed it entirely to the dreadful sight you witnessed on the wreck.’ She passed her hand through my arm with a soft impulse that started me into a walk, but there was so much real unconsciousness in her way of doing this--a childlike intimation of her wish to walk without proposing it, and so breaking the flow of our speech at the moment--that for some little while I was scarce sensible that I held her arm, and that I was pacing with her. ‘But I think there is more the matter with you, Mr. Monson,’ she continued, with her face glimmering like pearl in the dusk, as she looked up at me, ‘than meets the ear--I will not say the eye.’ ‘The fact is, Miss Jennings,’ said I abruptly, ‘I am bothered.’ ‘By what?’ ‘Well, what think you of the suspicion which grows in me that this yacht carries along with her, in the atmosphere that enfolds her, some sort of Ariel, whose mission it is to bewilder out of its invisibility the sober senses of men of plain, practical judgment, like your humble servant?’ ‘You want to frighten me by pretending that you are falling a little crazy.’ ‘No!’ ‘Or are you creating an excuse to return home.’ ‘No again. How can I return home?’ ‘Why, by the first convenient ship we happen to sight and speak. Is this some stratagem to prepare Wilfrid’s mind for your bidding us farewell when the chance happens?’ She spoke with a subdued note and a tremble of fretfulness in it. ‘Suffer me to justify myself,’ said I, and with that I led her to the captain, who stood with folded arms leaning against the rail near the main rigging. ‘Finn!’ He dropped his hands and stood bold upright. ‘Be so good as to tell Miss Jennings what the men are talking about forward.’ ‘You mean the woice, sir?’ ‘What the men are talking about,’ said I. ‘Well, miss,’ said Finn, ‘as the boat that Mr. Monson had charge of this afternoon was a-leaving the wreck, the men heard themselves hailed by a woice that begged ’em, in God’s name, not to leave the party as called behind. Mr. Monson, sir, you heard it likewise.’ ‘I did,’ I answered. ‘Another mystery,’ exclaimed Miss Laura, ‘quite as dismal and astonishing as Muffin’s phosphoric warning.’ ‘Thanks, Finn; that’s all I wanted to ask you,’ said I, and we left him to resume our walk. ‘Tell me about this voice,’ said the girl. I did so, putting plenty of colour into the picture, too, for I wanted her to sympathise with my superstitious mood, whilst up to now there was nothing but incredulity and a kind of coquettish pique in her voice and manner.