tch piled with chairs, or ship rule pinned upon the
notice-board, and signed by the chief.

Surely the hours of the tropical nights passed in sleep on deck are
those in which we should return thanks for lacking the gift of seeing
ourselves as the officer going on, or coming off watch, the fugitive
apprentice, or some stray passenger see us.

Human chrysalis, wrapt in the cocoon of sheet or unsightly night
attire, with starboard boudoir cap awry, exposing the steel cracker or
the lanky lock; unsightly pedal extremities peeping from the unfeminine
pyjama; ruby lips, uncarmined, ajar; whilst to port like rocks from the
ocean, unshaven chins rise unrebuked from blanket billows, and pyjama
button and buttonhole play touch across the unseemly, unrestrained and
unconfined masculine torso.

It was one of those insufferably hot nights you get sometimes as you
turn into the Hoogli, when the smell of the land comes in sickening
wafts, and the enchantment of the East is considerably lessened in your
opinion by the oppression of the atmosphere.

You are going up the Hoogli! you are passing the Sunderbunds! you can
almost see the tigers squatting in rows at the water's edge! it is the
East! it is India!--also it is infernally hot, and having retired to
your cabin to disrobe, you anathemise your stable companion who has
been likewise inspired; curse your overworked cabin steward who has
heaved your bedding on to the wrong site; re-arrange everything and bed
down.

Everyone was asleep when the light of the full moon caused a subdued
lustre under the awnings, and a greenish light in Leonie's wide-open,
staring eyes, as she suddenly swung herself over the side of her bunk
and slid unhurt to the floor.

She made an arresting picture as she stood listening intently, her
flimsy garment falling away from her shoulders, leaving the slender
white back bare to the waist, while she held handfuls of the
transparent stuff crushed against her breast, upon which lay a jewel
hung from a gold chain.

Her feet were bare, her arms were bare, and her tawny mass of hair hung
in two thick scented plaits to her dimpled knees; and she repeated some
words over and over again like one insane or delirious.

"_Ham abhi ate hai--ham abhi ate hai_."

Which being translated means "I come--I come."

Without the slightest hesitation she opened the door of No. 1
state-room, which she had had to herself after Port Said, and which, as
anyone who has travell