en. But he was only one amongst a crowd. For
anything I knew, his French friend might be as consummate a villain as
ever walked, and the Chinese in the galley cut-throats of the best
quality. And there, behind a mere partition, was a helpless girl--and
I was unarmed. It was a highly serious and unpleasant situation, at
the best of it, and the only thing I could do was to keep awake and
remain on the alert until morning came.

I took off coat and waistcoat, folded a blanket shawl-wise around my
shoulders, wrapped another round my legs, and made myself fairly
comfortable in the cushions which the Chinaman had deftly arranged in
an angle of the cabin. I had directed him to settle my night's
quarters in a corner close to Miss Raven's door, and immediately
facing the half-dozen steps which led upwards to the deck. At the head
of those steps was a door; I had bade him leave it open, so that I
might have plenty of air; when he had gone I had extinguished the lamp
which swung from the roof. And now, half-sitting, half-lying amongst
my cushions and rugs, I faced the patch of sky framed in that open
doorway and saw that the night was a clear one and that the heavens
were full of glittering stars.

I had just refilled and lighted my pipe before settling down to my
vigils, and for a long time I lay there smoking and thinking. My
thoughts were somewhat confused--confused, at any rate, to the extent
that they ranged over a variety of subjects--our apprehension that
afternoon; the queer, almost, if not wholly, eccentric character of
Netherfield Baxter; his strange story of the events in the Yellow Sea;
his frank avowal of his share in the theft of the monastic spoils; his
theory about Noah and Salter Quick, and other matters arising out of
these things. The whirl of it all in my anxious brain made me more
than once feel disposed to sleep; I realized that in spite of
everything, I should sleep unless I kept up a stern determination to
remain awake. Everything on board that strange craft was as still as
the skies above her decks; I heard no sound whatever save a very
gentle lapping of the water against the vessel's timbers, and,
occasionally, the far-off hooting of owls in the woods that overhung
the cove; these sounds, of course, were provocative of slumber; I had
to keep smoking to prevent myself from dropping into a doze. And
perhaps two hours may have gone in this fashion, and it was, I should
think, a little after midnight, when