Page:Weird Tales v01n01 (1923-03).djvu/117

116 to the stateroom, he flailed his arms about himself to stem the onrush of the chill. Once inside the passageway of the staterooms, however, he felt warmer, and by the time he reached his stateroom door the chill had subsided almost completely.

He was still uncomfortably cold, though, as he opened the door. With one hand he unbuttoned his overcoat and with the other he reached gropingly for the electric light button on the wall. He fumbled around for it a few seconds, then swore softly in vexation because he had not noticed by daylight just where it was located.

Groping with both hands, now, he stumbled around the none-too-commodious room, feeling for the push button on the wall. He paused once and took inventory of his pockets and cursed his luck for lack of another match.

Then he went to hunting in the dark again—until his hand came full against a living body.

HE BODY stirred, eluding Defoe’s contact.

Defoe fell to quaking once more, but it was not the trembling of the chill this time. He opened his mouth to challenge the intruder, and all he could do was swallow and gag at the words that stuck in his throat.

A pressure against the pit of his stomach—a firm shove of hand upon his shoulder—and Defoe found himself stepping backward until it seemed he must have walked the length of the ship. But of course he hadn’t—he hadn’t even left the stateroom—and suddenly he was tumbled on to the edge of the berth, the pressure against his abdomen increasing.

A vague nausea gripped him. He clutched at his abdomen and his fingers wrapped themselves around the barrel of an automatic pistol. The pressure against his body became unbearable, piercing. Defoe crumpled back into the berth and the convulsive effort restored his speech.

“What the hell are you doing?” he exploded. “Get out of here! What are you trying to do—stab me with a pistol?”

The incongruity of his question aroused a titter of amusement from the invisible presence.

“No, I only wished to make sure you weren't trying to get away.”

That Voice again!—here! Defoe cringed in a sort of abject fear.

“What are you—who are you?” Defoe struggled to keep his voice steady, struggled, indeed, to keep his reason from flying out of balance and shattering into a thousand pieces of driveling idiocy.

“Call me anything you care to,” replied the Voice in the dark.

“I don’t believe you are—anything at all! I think you are all a dream, a nightmare, a damnable hallucination that I can’t get rid of! To hell with you! I’m going to go down to the smoking-room and—smoke you out of my mind! I’m going to stay in the light from now on, day and night, until I get over this morbid dreaming!”

Defoe really thought he meant it all, until the pressure against his stomach made him doubt his courage and defiance.

Perhaps it was the nausea—maybe seasickness; he never had thought of that!—that was griping at his vitals like the insistent pressure of a steel-barreled weapon.

"Sit down, Mr. Defoe!” commanded the Voice. "I've got something to say to you."

"To hell with you!" Defoe repeated, almost hysterically now. His hands clutched at the pressure again—and once more the pistol barrel sent him squirming back into the recesses of the berth.

"I want to talk to you some more about the Bland case," went on the Voice, unperturbed by the other's outburts. "When are you going to confess?"

"Confess?" Defoe paried. "Confess what?"

"Confess that you knew Bland was innocent when you convicted him," said the Voice.