idge, he turned his chair slightly and bent to my ear.

"Mrs. Prior tells me that your charming friend was disturbed last
night," he whispered. "She seems rather pale this morning; I sincerely
trust that she is suffering no ill effect."

I swung around, with a smile. Owing to my carelessness, there was a
slight collision, and the poor bishop, who had been invalided to
England after typhoid, in order to undergo special treatment,
suppressed an exclamation of pain, although his fine dark eyes gleamed
kindly upon me through the pebbles of his gold-rimmed pince-nez.

Indeed, despite his Eastern blood, he might have posed for a Sadler
picture, his small and refined features seeming out of place above the
bulky body.

"Can you forgive my clumsiness?" I began.

But the bishop raised his small, slim-fingered hand of old-ivory hue
deprecatingly.

His system was supercharged with typhoid bacilli, and, as sometimes
occurs, the superfluous "bugs" had sought exit. He could only walk
with the aid of two stout sticks, and bent very much at that. His left
leg had been surgically scraped to the bone, and I appreciated the
exquisite torture to which my awkwardness had subjected him. But he
would entertain no apologies, pressing his inquiry respecting
Karamaneh, in the kindly manner which had made him so deservedly
popular on board.

"Many thanks for your solicitude," I said; "I have promised her sound
repose to-night, and since my professional reputation is at stake, I
shall see that she secures it."

In short, we were in pleasant company, and the day passed happily
enough and without notable event. Smith spent some considerable time
with the chief officer, wandering about unfrequented parts of the
ship. I learnt later that he had explored the lascars' quarters, the
forecastle, the engine-room, and had even descended to the stoke-hold;
but this was done so unostentatiously that it occasioned no comment.

With the approach of evening, in place of that physical contentment
which usually heralds the dinner-hour, at sea, I experienced a fit of
the seemingly causeless apprehension which too often in the past had
harbingered the coming of grim events; which I had learnt to associate
with the nearing presence of one of Fu-Manchu's death-agents. In view
of the facts, as I afterwards knew them to be, I cannot account for
this.

Yet, in an unexpected manner, my forebodings were realized. That night
I was destined to meet a sorrow surp