The story was received by those fellow-passengers who had been strongest
in their suspicions of Hurlstone's suicide or flight, with a keen sense
of discomfiture, only mitigated by a humorous perception of the cause
of the accident. It was agreed that a man whose ludicrous infirmity had
been the cause of putting the ship out of her course, and the passengers
out of their comfortable security, could not be wronged by attributing
to him manlier and more criminal motives. A somnambulist on shipboard
was clearly a humorous object, who might, however, become a bore. "It
all accounts for his being so deuced quiet and reserved in the daytime,"
said Crosby facetiously; "he couldn't keep it up the whole twenty-four
hours. If he'd only given us a little more of his company when he was
awake, he wouldn't have gallivanted round at night, and we'd have been
thirty miles nearer port." Equal amusement was created by the humorous
suggestion that the unfortunate man had never been entirely awake during
the voyage, and that he would now, probably for the first time, really
make the acquaintance of his fellow-voyagers. Listening to this
badinage with bland tolerance, Senor Perkins no doubt felt that, for the
maintenance of that perfect amity he so ardently apostrophized, it was
just as well that Hurlstone was in his state-room, and out of hearing.

He would have been more satisfied, however, had he been permitted to
hear the feminine comments on this incident. In the eyes of the lady
passengers Mr. Hurlstone was more a hero than ever; his mysterious
malady invested him with a vague and spiritual interest; his escape from
the awful fate reserved to him, in their excited fancy, gave him the
eclat of having ACTUALLY survived it; while the supposed real incident
of his fall through the hatchway lent him the additional lustre of a
wounded and crippled man. That prostrate condition of active humanity,
which so irresistibly appeals to the feminine imagination as segregating
their victim from the distractions of his own sex, and, as it were,