door and bulkhead were as transparent as glass. In my mind was a vague
intention of making examination of every detail which could bear on the
danger of Marjory. But even whilst such an idea was in its incipient
stage, so swift is the mechanism of thought, my eyes beheld, as though
it were through the sides of the ship, a boat pass out from a watercave
in the cliffs behind the Rock of Dunbuy. In it I saw, with the same
seeing eye which gave me power in aught else, seven men some of whom I
knew at a glance to be those whom Marjory had described in the tunnel.
All but one I surveyed calmly, and weighed up as it were with
complacency; but this one was a huge coal-black negro, hideous, and of
repulsive aspect. A glimpse of him made my blood run cold, and filled my
mind at once with hate and fear. As I looked, the boat came towards the
ship with inconceivable rapidity. It was not that she moved fast through
the water, for her progress was in reality slow and laboured. The wind
and the sea had risen; half a gale was blowing and the seas were running
so high that the ship rose and fell, pitched and rolled and tossed
about like a toy. It was, that time, like distance, was in my mind
obliterated. Truly, I was looking with spirit eyes, and under all
spiritual conditions.
The boat drew close to the whaler on the port side, and I saw, as if
from the former, the faces of several men who at the sound of oars came
rushing from the other side of the ship and leaned over the bulwarks. It
was evident that they had expected arrival from the starboard. With some
difficulty the boat got close, for the sea was running wilder every
moment; and one by one the men began to climb the ladder and disappear
over the bulwark. With the extraordinary action of sight and mind and
memory which was to me at present, I followed each and all of them at
the same time. They hurriedly rigged up a whip and began to raise from
the boat parcels of great weight. In the doing of this one of them, the
negro, was officious and was always trying to examine each parcel as it
came on board; but he was ever and always repulsed. The others would not
allow him to touch anything; at each rebuff he retired scowling. All
this must, under ordinary conditions, have taken much time, but to my
spirit-ruled eyes it all passed with wondrous rapidity....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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