ollowed the wake to mid-ocean; Mother Carey's chickens skimmed
the baby billows; dolphins turned watery flip-flaps under the bows;
and even a distant whale consented to oblige.

Everybody pervaded the decks morning, noon, and evening; the most
squeamish recovered confidence in twenty-four hours; and every
constitutional lubber concluded he was a born sailor.

Neeland really was one; no nausea born from the bad adjustment of that
anatomical auricular gyroscope recently discovered in man ever
disturbed his abdominal nerves. Short of shipwreck, he enjoyed any
entertainment the Atlantic offered him.

So he was always on deck, tranquilly happy and with nothing in the
world to disturb him except his responsibility for the olive-wood
box.

He dared not leave it in his locked cabin; he dared not entrust it to
anybody; he lugged it about with him wherever he went. On deck it
stood beside his steamer chair; it dangled from his hand when he
promenaded, exciting the amazement and curiosity of others; it
reposed on the floor under the table and beneath his attentive feet
when he was at meals.

These elaborate precautions indicated his wholesome respect for the
persistence of Scheherazade and her friends; he was forever scanning
his fellow-voyagers at table, in the smoking room, and as they
strolled to and fro in front of his steamer chair, trying to make up
his mind concerning them.

But Neeland, a clever observer of externals, was no reader of
character. The passenger list never seemed to confirm any conclusions
he arrived at concerning any of the passengers on the _Volhynia_. A
gentleman he mistook for an overfed broker turned out to be a popular
clergyman with outdoor proclivities; a slim, poetic-looking youth who
carried a copy of "Words and Wind" about the deck travelled for the
Gold Leaf Lard Company.

Taking them all in all, Neeland concluded that they were as harmless a
collection of _reconcentrados_ as he had ever observed; and he was
strongly tempted to leave the box in his locked stateroom.

He decided to do so one afternoon after luncheon, and, lugging his
box, started to return to his stateroom with that intention, instead
of going on deck, as usual, for a postprandial cigarette.

There was nobody in the main corridor as he passed, but in the short,
carpeted passage leading to his stateroom he caught a glimpse of a
white serge skirt vanishing into the stateroom opposite to his, and
heard the door close and t