Three at Table The Lady of the Barge and Others, Part 12.

In a cozy coffee‑room the conversation drifts from biblical legends to the strange tales that sailors bring ashore, sparking a lively debate between believers and skeptics. One seasoned mariner steps in to share a personal experience, recalling a lonely winter trek through the English countryside after a long voyage to China. His story begins with a bright, frosty morning that quickly turns eerie as a lingering fog rolls over the marshes, swallowing the path he follows.

Guided only by a tiny compass and his own determination, he becomes hopelessly lost in the white mist, stumbling over hidden ditches and hearing an unsettling footfall behind him. A solitary countryman appears, offers a cryptic warning about a mysterious presence near a dimly lit window, and disappears as quickly as he arrived. The narrator’s resolve to press onward hints at the uneasy balance between rational explanation and the uncanny that haunts both sailors and land‑locked listeners alike.