For a long while I sat there puzzling over it--half hoping that I might hear it again, and so be sure of it; and half hoping that I might not hear it, because of the thrilling tone in it which had filled me with a sharp alarm. I was so shaken that I had not the courage to go off to my berth in the cabin, with only a candle to light me there, but stayed on in the little room that the lamp lighted so brightly that there were no dark corners for my fancy to people with things horrible; and so, at last, still scared and puzzled, I went off to sleep in my chair. When I woke again the lamp had burned out and had filled the place with a vile smell of lamp-smoke that set me to sneezing. But I did not mind that much; for daylight had come, and my nerves were both quieted by sleep and steadied by that confident courage which most men feel--no matter how tight a fix they may be in--when they have the backing of the sun. My first thought was to get on deck and have a look about me; the feeling being strong in my mind that on one or another of the near-by wrecks I should find the man who had uttered that thrilling cry, and would find him in some trouble that I might be able to help him out of. But my second thought, and it was the wiser, was to eat first of all a good breakfast and so get strength in me that would make me ready to face whatever might come along--for a vague dread hung by me that I was in the way of danger, and whatever it might be I knew that I could the better stand up against it after a hearty meal. Therefore I got out another tin of meat and ate the whole of it, and a hunk of stale bread along with it, and washed down my breakfast with a bottle of beer--longing greatly for a cup of coffee in place of the beer, but being in too much of a hurry to stop for that while I made a fire. As the food got inside of me--though in that smoky and smelly place eating it was not much of a pleasure--my thoughts took a more cheerful turn. The hope of meeting a live man to talk to and to help me out of my utter loneliness rose strong in my mind; and I felt that no matter who or what he might be--even a man in desperate sickness and pain, whom I must nurse and care for--finding him in that solitude would make my own case less sad. And so, when I went on deck, my longing hope for companionship was the strongest feeling in my heart. With my first glance around I saw that during the night my hulk had made more progress than I had counted on; having moved the faster, I suppose, as it felt more strongly the pull of the mass of floatage near by. Be this as it may, I found myself so close alongside the big cargo-boat that a good jump would carry me aboard of her; and I was so eager to begin my investigations that I took the jump without a single moment of delay. And being come to her deck, the first thing that I saw there was a dead man lying in the middle of it with a pool of still fresh blood staining the planks by his side.