Read it through once

At that time my memory is full of the strange things which I have seen, and I want to tell one of them now. It began, as the majority of such stories do, with a lying-in-the-dark sort of feeling that something was wrong. There was a mystery about it. My friend, the captain, a solid, pale man, with a face like a clenched fist, sat at the stern and smoked thoughtfully. The others lay huddled under the awning, and the boat was swinging slowly with the tide.