horror of the conversation I had just overheard was aggravated by the
first sinking qualms of sea-sickness. The long roll of the Atlantic
was beginning to assert itself over both ship and passengers. I felt
prostrated in mind and in body, and fell into a state of collapse,
from which I was finally aroused by the hearty voice of our worthy
quartermaster.

"Do you mind moving out of that, sir?" he said. "We want to get this
lumber cleared off the deck."

His bluff manner and ruddy healthy face seemed to be a positive insult
to me in my present condition. Had I been a courageous or a muscular
man I could have struck him. As it was, I treated the honest sailor to a
melodramatic scowl which seemed to cause him no small astonishment,
and strode past him to the other side of the deck. Solitude was what I
wanted--solitude in which I could brood over the frightful crime which
was being hatched before my very eyes. One of the quarter-boats was
hanging rather low down upon the davits. An idea struck me, and climbing
on the bulwarks, I stepped into the empty boat and lay down in the
bottom of it. Stretched on my back, with nothing but the blue sky above
me, and an occasional view of the mizen as the vessel rolled, I was at
least alone with my sickness and my thoughts.

I tried to recall the words which had been spoken in the terrible
dialogue I had overheard. Would they admit of any construction but the
one which stared me in the face? My reason forced me to confess that
they would not. I endeavoured to array the various facts which formed
the chain of circumstantial evidence, and to find a flaw in it; but
no, not a link was missing. There was the strange way in which our
passengers had come aboard, enabling them to evade any examination of
their luggage. The very name of "Flannigan" smacked of Fenianism,
while "Muller" suggested nothing but socialism and murder. Then their
mysterious manner; their remark that their plans would have been ruined
had they missed the ship; their fear of being observed; last, but not
least, the clenching evidence in the production of the little square
box with the trigger, and their grim joke about the face of the man who
should let it off by mistake--could these facts lead to any conclusion
other than that they were the desperate emissaries of some body,
political or otherwise, who intended to sacrifice themselves, their
fellow-passengers, and the ship, in one great holocaust? The whitish
granules