our heads. It was an infinitely miserable time. It was lucky that
some tins of fine preserves were stowed in a locker in my
stateroom; hard bread I could always get hold of; and so he lived
on stewed chicken, pate de foie gras, asparagus, cooked oysters,
sardines--on all sorts of abominable sham delicacies out of tins.
My early morning coffee he always drank; and it was all I dared do
for him in that respect.

Every day there was the horrible manoeuvring to go through so that
my room and then the bath-room should be done in the usual way. I
came to hate the sight of the steward, to abhor the voice of that
harmless man. I felt that it was he who would bring on the
disaster of discovery. It hung like a sword over our heads.

The fourth day out, I think (we were then working down the east
side of the Gulf of Siam, tack for tack, in light winds and smooth
water)--the fourth day, I say, of this miserable juggling with the
unavoidable, as we sat at our evening meal, that man, whose
slightest movement I dreaded, after putting down the dishes ran up
on deck busily. This could not be dangerous. Presently he came
down again; and then it appeared that he had remembered a coat of
mine which I had thrown over a rail to dry after having been wetted
in a shower which had passed over the ship in the afternoon.
Sitting stolidly at the head of the table I became terrified at the
sight of the garment on his arm. Of course he made for my door.
There was no time to lose.

"Steward," I thundered. My nerves were so shaken that I could not
govern my voice and conceal my agitation. This was the sort of
thing that made my terrifically whiskered mate tap his forehead