In the dim light within the cabin, Tom could see a hand; it seemed very white in the gathering darkness. It was on the floor and the arm extended past the opening, so that all Tom could see was just this hand and arm. It seemed to him as if the hand belonged to one crouching, and who had cautiously rolled the door open for him to enter. He went in, then paused aghast at what he saw. If the hand had started the door, then it had been hospitably opened by a dead man. In the lurching of the boat the figure, apparently, had rolled out of the starboard bunk. It was in a sunken, half-sitting posture against the bunk. The head hung sideways, the glazed eyes leering at Tom as in ghastly welcome. He could not get it out of his startled senses that this thing had gotten out of the bunk, pushed the door open, and sat there on the floor in an affected attitude of subservient greeting. It seemed to say, “Here I am at your feet; walk in, won’t you?” Tom was startled, agitated. But he was not panic-stricken. He laid the body decently upon the floor, crossways so it would not roll with the rocking of the boat. It was the body of a man under middle age, partly clothed. He had been for many days unshaven, and was in a pitiful state of emaciation. Tom thought he had been dead for only a day or two. He pulled some shreds of awning from across the port-holes, threw open the heavy brass-bound glass disks, and let in the fresh evening air and such light as the late twilight afforded. He was too perturbed to see or think of anything outside the tragic circumstance of death, but a hasty glance about the cabin showed all too plainly that the boat had been the lonely refuge of this wretched, gaunt creature for many days. Whether anybody knew of his refuge Tom could not conjecture. He supposed that the owner was still abroad. No doubt the dead man had been fully cognizant of the measure of safety he enjoyed. Tom thought he might have died of consumption; he could not bear the thought that he had died of starvation. The walls of the cabin were very much besmeared with soot from a smelly, filthy oil stove. There were a very few odds and ends of food. Fishing tackle lay about and an old crab net. It was the lonely tenant of the _Goodfellow_, and not boys, who had fished, probably in the shelter of the darkness. On the little table a few papers were in a pasteboard box. An empty soup-can had been fastened to the slab by a tack driven through the bottom. In this stood a fountain pen. A bottle of ink had slid off on the floor. Among the papers was a queer pasteboard device, with a disk that turned; it was some kind of an elaborate weather chart. There were many clippings about the weather stuck on a nail in the bulkhead.