stewardess, who waited upon her. At the
expiration of that time I received a message, and went at once to her
berth. I never could have figured so striking a change in a fine woman
full of beauty in so short a time, as I now beheld. The fire had died
out of her eyes, and still there lurked something weird in the very
spiritlessness, and dull and vacant sadness of her gaze. Her cheeks
were hollow. Under each eye rested a shadow as though it was cast by a
green leaf.

Her first words were: "Cannot you find out who did it?"

"No, madam. We have tried hard; harder for the captain's sake than had
he been another, for the responsibility that rests upon the master of
an ocean-going vessel makes him an object of mighty significance,
believe me, to us sailors."

"But the person who killed him must be in the ship," she cried, in a
voice that wanted much of its old clear music.

"One should suppose so; and he is undoubtedly on board the ship; but
we can't find him."

"Did he commit suicide?"

"No. Everybody is accounted for."

"What motive," she exclaimed, with a sudden burst of desperate
passionate grief, that wrung her like a fit from head to foot, "could
any one have for killing Captain Griffiths! He was the gentlest, the
kindest--oh, my heart! my heart!" and, hiding her face, she rocked
herself in her misery.

I tried my rough, seafaring best to soothe her. Certainly, until this
moment I never could have supposed her love for the poor man was so
great.

The fear bred of this mysterious assassination lay in a dark and heavy
shadow upon the ship. None of us, passengers or sailors, turned in of
a night but with a fear of the secret bloody hand that had slain the
captain making its presence tragically known once more before the
morning.

It happened one midnight, when we were something north of the equator,
in the calms and stinging heat of the inter-tropic latitudes, that,
having come on deck to relieve the second mate, and take charge of the
ship till four o'clock, I felt thirsty, and returned to the cuddy for
a drink of water. Of the three lamps only one was alight, and burnt
very dimly. There was no moonlight, but a plenty of starshine, which
showered in a very rippling of spangled silver through the yawning
casements of the skylights.

Just as I returned the tumbler to the rack whence I had removed it,
the door of Miss Le Grand's cabin was opened, and the girl stepped
forth. She was arrayed in white; probably