You'll promise
that, won't you?"
I could see by the look on Dick's face as he acquiesced that he
considered poor Tom to be mad; and indeed I was myself completely
mystified by his conduct. I had, however, seen so many proofs of my
friend's good sense and quickness of apprehension that I thought it
quite possible that Wharton's story had had a meaning in his eyes which
I was too obtuse to take in.
All night Tom Donahue was greatly excited, and when Wharton left
he begged him to remember his promise, and also elicited from him a
description of the exact spot at which he had seen the apparition, as
well as the hour at which it appeared. After his departure, which must
have been about four in the morning, I turned into my bunk and watched
Tom sitting by the fire splicing two sticks together, until I fell
asleep. I suppose I must have slept about two hours; but when I awoke
Tom was still sitting working away in almost the same position. He had
fixed the one stick across the top of the other so as to form a rough T,
and was now busy in fitting a smaller stick into the angle between
them, by manipulating which, the cross one could be either cocked up or
depressed to any extent.
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