Page:Anderson--Isle of seven moons.djvu/61

Rh sion. The bosun and the ship's carpenter rushed forward into the forecastle, and there, stretched on his bunk, froth on his ashen face, his limbs distorted and rigid, lay the foreign sailor.

"Look at that!" whispered the bosun. His voice shook. So, too, did the forefinger pointing at the twisted corpse.

His companion stopped short, and he, too, shivered through all of his sturdy bulk, as his own eyes met two others of yellow, gleaming above the bunk. On the breast of the dead man, humping its back and spitting at them, sat—a black cat.

Perhaps the death could have been diagnosed by a ship's-surgeon, had there been one aboard, but the crew would never have believed him. They came tumbling on deck, trembling and swearing the strange rough oaths of the sea, each under his breath as if in fear of disturbing some evil presence that haunted the ship.

After them came the bosun, and in his hands, carried at arms'-length like a thing accursed, the black cat. Reaching the rail, he spun it by its tail three times around his head, then hurled it into the waters with a strength that seemed almost preternaturally aided. The ill-omened animal fell far astern, close by the winking shark's fin, which vanished, then reappeared, waiting with infinite patience for greater prey.

They buried the strange sailor in the next watch, for there must be haste in the heat of the tropics. While the crew gathered round, one or two in old-fashioned New England devoutness, but most of them turning their caps in