ettee, but the next roll of the vessel
brought him to the floor and left him crouching in the corner, still
clutching the monkey, his knees almost level with his shoulders, and his
awful face looking up at me between them. The whole affair was so
detestable that my gorge rose at it, and when I left him I returned to
the saloon with a greater detestation of him in my heart than I had felt
before. I found the Fraeulein Valerie seated at the table.

"Fraeulein," I said, seating myself beside her, "I am afraid you have
been needlessly alarmed. As I said in there, I give you my word there is
no immediate danger."

"I _am_ frightened," she answered. "See how my hands are trembling. But
it is not death I fear."

"You fear that man," I said, nodding my head in the direction of the
cabin I had just left; "but I assure you, you need not do so, for
to-day, at least, he is harmless."

"Ah! you do not know him as I do," she replied. "I have seen him like
this before. As soon as the storm abates he will be himself again, and
then he will hate us both the more for having been witnesses of his
cowardice." Then, sinking her voice a little, she added: "I often
wonder, Mr. Forrester, whether he can be human. If so, he must be the
only one of his kind in the world, for Nature surely could not permit
two such men to live."

CHAPTER X.

It was almost dark when the yacht entered the harbour of Port Said,
though the sky at the back of the town still retained the last lingering
colours of the sunset, which had been more beautiful that evening than I
ever remembered to have seen it before. Well acquainted as I was with
the northern shores of the Mediterranean, this was the first time I had
been brought into contact with the southern, and, what was more
important, it was also the first occasion on which I had joined hands
with the Immemorial East. In the old days I had repeatedly heard it said
by travellers that Port Said was a place not only devoid of interest,
but entirely lacking in artistic colour. I take the liberty of
disagreeing with my informants _in toto_. Port Said greeted me with the
freshness of a new life. The colouring and quaint architecture of the
houses, the vociferous boatmen, the monotonous chant of the Arab
coalers, the string of camels I could just make out turning the corner
of a distant street, the donkey boys, the Soudanese soldiers at the
barriers, and last, but by no means least, the crowd of shipping in t