she was attired in her
bed-clothes. She seemed to see me at once, for she emerged directly
opposite; and I thought she would speak, or hastily retire. But, after
appearing to stare for a little while, she came to the table and
leaned upon it with her left hand, sighing several times in the most
heart-broken manner; and now I saw by the help of the dim lamplight
that her right hand grasped a knife--the gleam of the blade caught my
eye in a breath!

"Good gracious!" I cried to myself, instantly, "the woman's asleep!
This, then, is the ghost that frightened the Dane. And this, too, was
the hand that murdered the captain!"

I stood motionless watching her. Presently, taking her hand off the
table, she turned her face aft, and with a wonderfully subtle,
stealthy, sneaking gait, reminding one strangely of the folding motion
of the snake, she made for the captain's cabin.

Now, that cabin, ever since Griffith's death, I had occupied, and you
may guess the sensations with which I followed the armed and murderous
sleep-walker as she glided to what I must call my berth, and
noiselessly opened the door of it. The moment she was in the cabin her
motions grew amazingly swift. She stepped to the side of the bunk I
was in the habit of using, and lifting the knife plunged it once, deep
and hard--then came away, so nimbly that it was with difficulty I made
room for her in the doorway to pass. I heard her breathe hard and fast
as she swept by, and I stood in the doorway of my cabin watching her
till her figure disappeared in her own berth.

So, then, the mystery was at an end. Poor Captain Griffith's murderess
was his adored sweetheart! She had killed him in her sleep, and knew
it not. In the blindness of slumber she had repeated the enormous
tragedy, as sinless nevertheless as the angel who looked down and
beheld her and pitied her!

I went on deck and sent for the doctor, to whom I communicated what I
had seen, and he at once repaired to Miss Le Grand's berth accompanied
by the stewardess, and found her peacefully resting in her bunk. No
knife was to be seen. However, next morning, the young lady being then
on deck, veiled as she always now went, and sitting in a retired part
of the poop, the second mate, the doctor, and the stewardess again
thoroughly searched Miss Le Grand's berth, and they found in a hollow
in the ship's side, a sort of scupper in fact for the porthole, a
carving knife, rusted with old stains of blood. It had