or?"

"Don't know, sir."

The elderly sailor displayed a profound indifference towards human
emotions. However, after a longish pause he conceded a few words more
to the second officer's weakness. "Yes. He was walking the deck as
usual when suddenly he laughed a little and made for the companion.
Thought of something funny all at once."

Something funny! That Mr Powell could not believe. He did not ask
himself why, at the time. Funny thoughts come to men, though, in all
sorts of situations; they come to all sorts of men. Nevertheless Mr
Powell was shocked to learn that Captain Anthony had laughed without
visible cause on a certain night. The impression for some reason was
disagreeable. And it was then, while finishing his watch, with the
chilly gusts of wind sweeping at him out of the darkness where the short
sea of the soundings growled spitefully all round the ship, that it
occurred to his unsophisticated mind that perhaps things are not what
they are confidently expected to be; that it was possible that Captain
Anthony was not a happy man.--In so far you will perceive he was to a
certain extent prepared for the apoplectic and sensitive Franklin's
lamentations about his captain. And though he treated them with a
contempt which was in a great measure sincere, yet he admitted to me
that deep down within him an inexplicable and uneasy suspicion that all
was not well in that cabin, so unusually cut off from the rest of the
ship, came into being and grew against his will...

PART TWO, CHAPTER 4.

ANTHONY AND FLORA.

Marlow emerged out of the shadow of the bookcase to get himself a cigar
from a box which stood on a little table by my side. In the full light
of the room I saw in his eyes that slightly mocking expression with
which he habitually covers up his sympathetic impulses of mirth and pity
before the unreasonable complications the idealism of mankind puts into
the simple but poignant problem of conduct on this earth.

He selected and lit the cigar with affected care, then turned upon me.
I had been looking at him silently.

"I suppose," he said, the mockery of his eyes giving a pellucid quality
to his tone, "that you think it's high time I told you something
definite. I mean something about that psychological cabin mystery of
discomfort (for it's obvious that it must be psychological) which
affected so profoundly Mr Franklin the chief mate, and had even
disturbed the serene innocence of Mr Po