dom Come as when he starved in the dingey
on No Man's Sea. As I said before, I think he didn't recognise me; and
he's lying now in 116 Intermediate, with a look on him that I've seen
in the face of a man condemned to death by the devils of cholera or
equatorial fever. And that's the story, Marmion, which I brought you to
hear--told, as you notice, in fine classical style."

"And why do you tell ME this, Hungerford--a secret you've kept all these
years? Knowledge of that man's crime wasn't necessary before giving him
belladonna or a hot bath."

Hungerford kept back the whole truth for reasons of his own. He said:
"Chiefly because I want you to take a decent interest in the chap. He
looks as if he might go off on the long voyage any tick o' the clock.
You are doctor, parson, and everything else of the kind on board. I like
the poor devil, but anyhow I'm not in a position to be going around with
ginger-tea in a spoon, or Ecclesiastes under my arm,--very good things.
Your profession has more or less to do with the mind as well as the
body, and you may take my word for it that Boyd Madras's mind is as sick
as his torso. By the way, he calls himself 'Charles Boyd,' so I suppose
we needn't recall to him his former experiences by adding the 'Madras.'"

Hungerford squeezed my arm again violently, and added: "Look here,
Marmion, we understand each other in this, don't we? To do what we can
for the fellow, and be mum."

Some of this looks rough and blunt, but as it was spoken there was that
in it which softened it to my ear. I knew he had told all he thought
I ought to know, and that he wished me to question him no more, nor to
refer to Mrs. Falchion, whose relationship to Boyd Madras--or Charles
Boyd--both of us suspected.

"It was funny about those verses coming to my mind, wasn't it, Marmion?"
he continued. And he began to repeat one of them, keeping time to the
wave-like metre with his cheroot, winding up with a quick, circular
movement, and putting it again between his lips:

"'There's never a ripple upon the tide,
There's never a breath or sound;
But over the waste the white wraiths glide,
To look for the souls of the drowned."'

Then he jumped off the berth where he had been sitting, put on his
jacket, said it was time to take his turn on the bridge, and prepared
to go out, having apparently dismissed Number 116 Intermediate from his
mind.

I went to Charles Boyd's cabin, and knock