The Horror at Red Hook

distinctly assured Malone that he did not see IT.  The open porthole,
just before he turned on the lights, was clouded for a second with a
certain phosphorescence, and for a moment there seemed to echo in the
night outside the suggestion of a faint and hellish tittering; but no
real outline met the eye.  As proof, the doctor points to his
continued sanity.

Then the tramp steamer claimed all attention.  A boat put off, and a
horde of swart, insolent ruffians in officers' dress swarmed aboard
the temporarily halted Cunarder.  They wanted Suydam or his
body--they had known of his trip, and for certain reasons were sure
he would die.  The captain's deck was almost a pandemonium; for at
the instant, between the doctor's report from the stateroom and the
demands of the men from the tramp, not even the wisest and gravest
seaman could think what to do.  Suddenly the leader of the visiting
mariners, an Arab with a hatefully negroid mouth, pulled forth a
dirty, crumpled paper and handed it to the captain.  It was signed by
Robert Suydam, and bore the following odd message:


_In case of sudden or unexpected accident or death on my part, please
deliver me or my body unquestioningly into the hands of the bearer