I wondered. Prior to his departure, Ellison had introduced me to the large-eyed, raven-haired lady, Ligeia, a woman of such fascinating beauty as slowed the cadence of my thinking to at least half its normal pace. Yet, it was not entirely her appearance which, I realized after a minute or so, was doing this to me. It was some other element about her person which was producing an actual physical effect.
Immediately I realized this, I stepped back a pace and took a deep breath. The sensation vanished. The lady smiled.
"Delighted to make your acquaintance," she'd stated as Ellison named me, her voice low, hypnotic, accented in the manner of a Russian immigrant I had once known, eyes staring into my own with an unusual intensity.
"This is the man of whom I was speaking earlier—"
"I know," she stated.
"—and he has agreed to manage the business to which I referred."
"I know," she repeated.
"So I would appreciate your placing our special resources at his service."
She nodded.
"Of course."
"However, he has had an extremely filled day," he went on, "and I feel that any farther excitement would not be in his best interest. So I suggest we postpone his introduction to your charge until tomorrow. He is already aware that Monsieur Valdemar is able to obtain us information from places beyond this version of reality."
"I understand," she said.
"I don't," I said, "but I'll take your word for it."
"I will obtain sailing information and relay it to Captain Guy before my departure," he said.
"Very good," I replied. "In which case—"
"—you may retire," he finished for me, "and I'll bid you farewell and good luck as well as good night."
He clasped my hand with a firm grip.
"All right," I said. "Good-bye and good night."
I nodded to Ligeia. "I'll see you tomorrow," I told her.
"I know," she said.
I headed back to the stateroom, where I cast myself face downwards across the big bed. I was asleep almost immediately, later going away to our kingdom by the sea. And now... .
Sufficient light streamed from the ports for me to shave by, drawing fresh water from a large tank at the alchemical end of my quarters, emptying my basin out the nearest port when I had done with it. When I had finished grooming myself I went in search of breakfast. In the mess I was told that I might be served in my stateroom and instructed in the system of signaling for service. Since I was already in the saloon, however, I elected to remain, while eggs and onions, toast and halibut were prepared for my refreshment. The night's shadowy farrago of dreams and bewilderments, puzzles and fears, was washed from my spirit by several cups of excellent coffee, the final of which I took with me on deck, to sip as I beheld the icy, sun-spotted waves, a few benign-looking clouds drifting like white islands in the placid blue overhead. The sun was still low in its corner of the heavens, and taking my bearings therefrom I sought in what I thought must be a shoreward direction for signs of the coast we had departed, but my gaze met land neither in that direction nor any other. A trail of gulls rode the winds behind us, dipping into and rising out of our wake. When the cook—a one-eyed Spaniard named Domingo—called something loudly (whether curses or snatches of song, I am uncertain) and dumped the morning's slops, they answered him and fell quickly to feasting in the churning waters. I moved forward then, seeking for some time in that direction after any sign of the great dark vessel Evening Star. But, it too, lay beyond the blue edges of my world.
I shivered and gulped more of the steaming coffee. I resolved to wear something warmer the next time I was above deck this early in the day. Turning to head below and return my cup to the galley on the way to Ligeia's cabin, I encountered a grinning Dirk Peters, who touched the bill of his cap in mock salute and growled, "'Marnin', Master Eddie."
I gave him a smile and a nod and returned, "Good morning, Mister Peters."
" 'Dirk' will do," he responded. "Lovely day now, ain't it?"
"Indeed," I agreed.
"And how does it feel, bein' in charge?" he continued.
"Hard to say," I replied. "I haven't given any orders yet."
He shrugged.
"No need, so far as I understand," he said. "'Less some emergency comes along. Mr. Ellison should've taken care of all the orderin' for a time."
"That's how I understand it, too," I said.
"You much of a seaman?" he asked.
"I was abroad, as a child. I don't remember getting seasick, if that's what you mean."
"Good," he observed, as a dark shape fell from the rigging, to bound across the deck and come up beside him. He reached out to clasp the hirsute shoulder of his ape, Emerson. The beast responded in kind, and I could not help but note that they resembled each other more than slightly. I say this not to disparage the man who came to my aid in a time of need—for I agree that it is more pardonable to trespass against truth than beauty—but because the very ugliness of his physiognomy was, in some wise, a thing of far greater fascination than those paragons of handsomeness the artists favor. His lips were thin, his teeth, ever-visible, long and protruding. He might almost give the impression of amusement were one to pay him but a casual glance. On return regard, however, one might liken it more to the merriment of a demon. In fact, his face was twisted, as if convulsed with laughter, and of paler pigmentation in patches between some of these creases than others, leading me to wonder whether some areas of his face might not be formed entirely of scar tissue. It was a frightening face, especially when one realized that its transition from seeming jollity to ferociousness was entirely a matter of one's own deepening perception rather than of any action on the man's part—as if reaching after a jewel beheld in some shadowy recess, one realized it to be embedded in the head of a serpent. "Good."
"What can you tell me about Valdemar?" I asked him.
He reached up as if to scratch his head, passing his fingers beneath his fantastical crop of black shag, raising it in the process and revealing it to be a peculiar wig. Observing my fascinated gaze he grinned a genuine grin and said, "Cut it from the skin of a bear who'd meant me ill." Then, "Valdemar," he observed. "Never laid eyes on 'im. He keeps in his stateroom, next to yours."
While there was something of the sailor in Peters' speech and manner, there seemed even more of the frontier. So, "You from the West?" I asked him.
He nodded.
"My pappy was a voyageur, a fur trader," he said, "and my mammy was an Upsaroka Injun out of the Black Hills. I've tracked and hunted all over the West. I've walked through Colter's Hell and been down in a canyon so big you could drop Charleston in and lose it." He spat over the railing, striking a luckless gull with terrible accuracy. "I've been down in Mexico and up where the northern lights hang like curtains at the end of the day." He scratched under his wig again. "All b'fore I was twelve," he added.
While I was not unfamiliar with tellers of tall tales, the man's ruggedly bizarre appearance and casual manner of speaking had me believing him entirely. A liar cares whether people believe what he said, for he wishes to impress them. I did not believe Peters gave a damn what anybody thought.
"About Valdemar ..." I suggested.
"Yes?"
"How long has he been aboard?"
"Don't rightly know, sir," he replied. "Longer than me. The men were told he's an invalid and likes to travel. But I kinda wonder how much enjoyment there can be, stayin' in one room like that."