He might have been pounced upon in the dark at any moment by the murderer of Laughing Anne.

He confesses to the impulse of creeping away from that pitiful corpse on his hands and knees to the refuge of the ship.

He even says that he actually began to do so.

.

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"One can hardly picture to oneself Davidson crawling away on all fours from the murdered woman--Davidson unmanned and crushed by the idea that she had died for him in a sense.