walked up with one stocking foot very close to Falk, in order to ask
him whether he did think there was anywhere on earth a woman abandoned
enough to mate with such a monster. "Did he? Did he? Did he?" I tried
to restrain him. He tore himself out of my hands; he found his slipper,
and, endeavouring to put it on, stormed standing on one leg--and Falk,
with a face unmoved and averted eyes, grasped all his mighty beard in
one vast palm.

"Was it right then for me to die myself?" he asked thoughtfully. I laid
my hand on his shoulder.

"Go away," I whispered imperiously, without any clear reason for this
advice, except that I wished to put an end to Hermann's odious noise.
"Go away."

He looked searchingly for a moment at Hermann before he made a move.
I left the cabin too to see him out of the ship. But he hung about the
quarter-deck.

"It is my misfortune," he said in a steady voice.

"You were stupid to blurt it out in such a manner. After all, we don't
hear such confidences every day."

"What does the man mean?" he mused in deep undertones. "Somebody had to
die--but why me?"

He remained still for a time in the dark--silent; almost invisible. All
at once he pinned my elbows to my sides. I felt utterly powerless in his
grip, and his voice, whispering in my ear, vibrated.

"It's worse than hunger. Captain, do you know what that means? And I
could kill then--or be killed. I wish the crowbar had smashed my skull
ten years ago. And I've got to live now. Without her. Do you understand?
Perhaps many years. But how? What can be done? If I had allowed myself
to look at her once I would have carried her off before that man in my
hands--like this."

I felt myself snatched off the deck, then suddenly dropped--and I
staggered backwards, feeling bewildered and bruised. What a man! All was
still; he was gone. I heard Hermann's voice declaiming in the cabin, and
I went in.

I could not at first make out a single word, but Mrs. Hermann, who,
attracted by the noise, had come in some time before, with an expression
of surprise and mild disapproval, depicted broadly on her face, was
giving now all the signs of profound, helpless agitation. Her husband
shot a string of guttural words at her, and instantly putting out one
hand to the bulkhead as if to save herself from falling, she clutched
the loose bosom of her dress with the other. He harangued the two women
extraordinarily, with much of his shirt hanging out of his waist-bel