to the door
of the dead man's state-room. The captain nodded and let him go; and
then Powell crept over, hooked the door open and crept back with fearful
glances towards Mrs Anthony's cabin. They stooped over the corpse.
Captain Anthony lifted up the shoulders.

Mr Powell shuddered. "I'll never forget that interminable journey
across the saloon, step by step, holding our breath. For part of the
way the drawn half of the curtain concealed us from view had Mrs
Anthony opened her door; but I didn't draw a free breath till after we
laid the body down on the swinging cot. The reflection of the saloon
light left most of the cabin in the shadow. Mr Smith's rigid, extended
body looked shadowy too, shadowy and alive. You know he always carried
himself as stiff as a poker. We stood by the cot as though waiting for
him to make us a sign that he wanted to be left alone. The captain
threw his arm over my shoulder and said in my very ear: `The steward'll
find him in the morning.'

"I made no answer. It was for him to say. It was perhaps the best way.
It's no use talking about my thoughts. They were not concerned with
myself, nor yet with that old man who terrified me more now than when he
was alive. Him whom I pitied was the captain. He whispered: `I am
certain of you, Mr Powell. You had better go on deck now. As to
me...' and I saw him raise his hands to his head as if distracted. But
his last words before we stole out that cabin stick to my mind with the
very tone of his mutter--to himself, not to me:--

"No! No! I am not going to stumble now over that corpse."

"This is what our Mr Powell had to tell me," said Marlow, changing his
tone. I was glad to learn that Flora de Barral had been saved from
_that_ sinister shadow at least falling upon her path.

We sat silent then, my mind running on the end of de Barral, on the
irresistible pressure of imaginary griefs, crushing conscience,
scruples, prudence, under their ever-expanding volume; on the sombre and
venomous irony in the obsession which had mastered that old man.

"Well," I said.

"The steward found him," Mr Powell roused himself. "He went in there
with a cup of tea at five and of course dropped it. I was on watch
again. He reeled up to me on deck pale as death. I had been expecting
it; and yet I could hardly speak. `Go and tell the captain quietly,' I
managed to say. He ran off muttering `My God! My God!' and I'm hanged
if he didn't get hyste