"I haven't troubled to make inquiries," added Smith, "but I think it
probable that the regulation respecting closed ports will come into
operation immediately we have passed the Straits, or at any rate
immediately there is any likelihood of bad weather."

"You mean--"

"I mean that no alteration should be made in our habits. A second
attempt along similar lines is to be apprehended--to-night. After that
we may begin to look out for a new danger."

"I pray we may avoid it," I said fervently.

As I entered the saloon for breakfast in the morning, I was subjected
to solicitous inquiries from Mrs. Prior, the gossip of the ship. Her
room adjoined Karamaneh's and she had been one of the passengers
aroused by the girl's cries in the night. Strictly adhering to my
role, I explained that my patient was threatened with a second nervous
breakdown, and was subject to vivid and disturbing dreams. One or two
other inquiries I met in the same way, ere escaping to the corner
table reserved to us.

That iron-bound code of conduct which rules the Anglo-Indian, in the
first days of the voyage had threatened to ostracize Karamaneh and
Aziz, by reason of the Eastern blood to which their brilliant but
peculiar type of beauty bore witness. Smith's attitude, however--and,
in a Burmese commissioner, it constituted something of a law--had done
much to break down the barriers; the extraordinary beauty of the girl
had done the rest. So that now, far from finding themselves shunned,