feeling sure some darker and more momentous motive dictated this obstinate
avoidance of the public eye. Exasperation aroused by failure to fathom the
mystery took precedence in his thoughts even to the personal solicitude
excited by last night's gossip of the smoking room....

With no other disturbing incident the afternoon wore away, the wind
steadily flagging, the waves as steadily subsiding. When twilight closed in
there was nothing more disturbing to one's equilibrium than a sea of long
and sullen rolls scored by the pelting downpour.

Perhaps as many as ten venturesome souls dined in the saloon, their fellows
sticking desperately to the decks and contenting themselves with coffee and
sandwiches.

Daylight waned, terrors waxed: passengers instinctively gravitated into
little knots and clusters, conversing guardedly as if fearful lest their
normal accents bring down upon them those Apaches of the underseas for
signs of whom their frightened glances incessantly ranged over-rail and
searched the heaving wastes.

The understanding was tacit that all would spend the night on deck.

Dusk at length blotted out the shadows of their guardian destroyers, and a
great and desolating loneliness settled down upon the ship. One by one
the passengers grew dumb; still they clung together, but seemingly their
tongues would no more function.

With nightfall, the rain ceased, the breeze freshened a trifle, the pall of
cloud lifted and broke, giving glimpses of remote, impersonal stars. Later
a gibbous moon leered through the flying wrack, checkering the sea with