"
"And did she wake anybody?" Rulledge inquired.
"That was the strange part of it. Not a soul stirred, and after the
first burst the girl seemed to quiet down again and yield the floor to
Melford, who kept bellowing steadily away. I was so furious that I
reached out across the aisle to shake him, but the attempt was too much
for me. I lost my balance and fell out of my berth onto the floor. You
may imagine the state of mind I was in. I gathered myself up and pulled
Melford's curtains open and was just going to fall on him tooth and
nail, when I was nearly taken off my feet again by an apparition: well,
it looked like an apparition, but it was a tall fellow in his
nighty--for it was twenty years before pajamas--and he had a small dark
lantern in his hand, such as we used to carry in those days so as to
read in our berths when we couldn't sleep. He was gritting his teeth,
and growling between them: 'Out o' this! Out o' this! I'm going to shoot
to kill, you blasted thieves!' I could see by the strange look in his
eyes that he was sleep-walking, and I didn't wait to see if he had a
pistol.
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