I found sleep no easy matter. Sceptical though I was, I could not get Pauline’s curious production out of my head, and the more I thought of it the more inexplicable seemed its coincidence with the chart. The subconscious mind, with its amazing memory, its dramatic faculty, its unexpected invasion of the surface consciousness in certain types, was not then the commonplace of psychology that it is now--or I should probably have referred the whole thing to the combination of a casual, apparently unheeding, glance at the chart with a memory of some of her brother’s remarks about “Treasure Island,” automatically and dramatically reproduced. As it was, I could formulate no explanation that satisfied me--though I utterly disbelieved in the ghost of a piratical John Dawson, of which the two Vandermeulens were now fully persuaded.
The next day found us steaming steadily westward. Father and son could talk of nothing else but their fancied buried treasure and their plans for digging it up without taking the crew of the yacht into their confidence. Mrs. Vandermeulen hovered round her daughter, horribly anxious of she knew not what, but--after having been once silenced by a peremptory oath from her husband--afraid to make further protest. Pauline herself sat all day in a deck-chair, more silent even than usual, staring dreamily across the empty sea in a reverie which ignored us all. Naturally, I watched her closely. But, except that her eyes had a kind of haunting fear in them, she seemed perfectly normal. Evidently the occurrence of the previous night had shocked her profoundly, for once, when I casually mentioned it, she shuddered and implored me not to speak of it again. The fear of the uncanny in herself stared out of her eyes as she entreated me.
This dreamy absorption in herself continued until supper time that evening. Throughout the meal, I do not think she uttered a single word. She seemed not even to hear the conversation around her, but toyed listlessly with her food and finally ceased to eat long before the others had finished. Watching her with a professionally interested observation, I was uneasy. She had leaned back in her chair, was gazing straight before her with wide-open eyes. Suddenly I noticed that they had glazed over. All expression faded out of her face. The arm that rested on the salmon-table stiffened into a cataleptic sort of rigidity.