rare, do occasionally add to the horrors of ships' concerts. They
stared at Hignett apprehensively. There seemed to them something
ominous in the man's very aspect. His face was very pale and set, the
face of one approaching a task at which his humanity shudders. They
could not know that the pallor of Eustace Hignett was due entirely to
the slight tremor which, even on the calmest nights, the engines of an
ocean liner produce in the flooring of a dining saloon and to that
faint, yet well-defined, smell of cooked meats which clings to a room
where a great many people have recently been eating a great many meals.
A few beads of cold perspiration were clinging to Eustace Hignett's
brow. He looked straight before him with unseeing eyes. He was thinking
hard of the Sahara.

So tense was Eustace's concentration that he did not see Billie
Bennett, seated in the front row. Billie had watched him enter with a
little thrill of embarrassment. She wished that she had been content
with one of the seats at the back. But her friend Jane Hubbard, who
accompanied her, had insisted on the front row.

In order to avoid recognition for as long as possible, Billie now put
up her fan and turned to Jane. She was surprised to see that her friend
was staring eagerly before her with a fixity almost equal to that of
Eustace.

"What _is_ the matter, Jane?"

Jane Hubbard was a tall, handsome girl with large brown eyes. About
her, as Bream Mortimer had said, there was something dynamic. The
daughter of an eminent explorer and big-game hunter, she had frequently
accompanied her father on his expeditions. An out-doors girl.