entirely, his hands ever beating the air and the mocking water. I
thought that I tried many times to throw him a lighted buoy in the half-
shadow, but some one held me back, and I knew that a woman's arms were
round me.

But at last the drowning man looked up and saw the woman so, and, with a
last quiver of the arms, he sank from sight. When he was gone, the
woman's arms dropped away from me; but when I turned to speak to her,
she, too, had gone.

I awoke.

Two stewards were talking in the passage, and one was saying, "She'll get
under way by daybreak, and it will be a race with the 'Porcupine' to Aden.
How the engines are kicking below!"




CHAPTER VI

MUMMERS ALL

The next day was beautiful, if not enjoyable. Stirring preparations
were being made for the ball. Boyd Madras was transferred to a cabin far
forward, but he did not appear at any meal in the saloon, or on deck. In
the morning I was busy in the dispensary. While I was there, Justine
Caron came to get some medicine that I had before given her. Her hand
was now nearly well. Justine had nerves, and it appeared to me that her
efforts to please her mistress, and her occasional failures, were wearing