"Who'd have thought of
finding a ladder hanging over at night in a ship anchored out here! I
felt just then a very unpleasant faintness. After the life I've been
leading for nine weeks, anybody would have got out of condition. I
wasn't capable of swimming round as far as your rudder chains. And, lo
and behold! there was a ladder to get hold of. After I gripped it I said
to myself, 'What's the good?' When I saw a man's head looking over I
thought I would swim away presently and leave him shouting--in whatever
language it was. I didn't mind being looked at. I--I liked it. And then
you speaking to me so quietly--as if you had expected me--made me hold
on a little longer. It had been a confounded lonely time--I don't mean
while swimming. I was glad to talk a little to somebody that didn't
belong to the Sephora. As to asking for the captain, that was a mere
impulse. It could have been no use, with all the ship knowing about me
and the other people pretty certain to be round here in the morning. I
don't know--I wanted to be seen, to talk with somebody, before I went
on. I don't know what I would have said.... 'Fine night, isn't it?'
or something of the sort."

"Do you think they will be round here presently?" I asked with some
incredulity.

"Quite likely," he said, faintly.

"He looked extremely haggard all of a sudden. His head rolled on his
shoulders.

"H'm. We shall see then. Meantime get into that bed," I whispered. "Want
help? There."

It was a rather high bed place with a set of drawers underneath. This
amazing swimmer really needed the lift I gave him by seizing his leg. He
tumbled in, rolled over on his back, and flung one arm across his eyes.
And then, with his face nearly hidden, he must have looked exactly as I
used to look in that bed. I gazed upon my other self for a while before
drawing across carefully the two green serge curtains which ran on a
brass rod. I thought for a moment of pinning them together for greater
safety, but I sat down on the couch, and once there I felt unwilling
to rise and hunt for a pin. I would do it in a moment. I was extremely
tired, in a peculiarly intimate way, by the strain of stealthiness, by
the effort of whispering and the general secrecy of this excitement. It
was three o'clock by now and I had been on my feet since nine, but I
was not sleepy; I could not have gone to sleep. I sat there, fagged
out, looking at the curtains, trying to clear my mind of the confused
sensati