the guilt,
of an unseen beholder. Experience was being piled-up on his young
shoulders. Mrs Anthony's hair hung back in a dark mass like the hair
of a drowned woman. She looked as if she would let go and sink to the
floor if the captain were to withhold his sustaining arm. But the
captain obviously had no such intention. Standing firm and still he
gazed with sombre eyes at Mr Smith. For a time the low convulsive
sobbing of Mr Smith's daughter was the only sound to trouble the
silence. The strength of Anthony's clasp pressing Flora to his breast
could not be doubted even at that distance, and suddenly, awakening to
his opportunity, he began to partly support her, partly carry her in the
direction of her cabin. His head was bent over her solicitously, then
recollecting himself, with a glance full of unwonted fire, his voice
ringing in a note unknown to Mr Powell, he cried to him, "Don't you go
on deck yet. I want you to stay down here till I come back. There are
some instructions I want to give you."

And before the young man could answer, Anthony had disappeared in the
stern-cabin, burdened and exulting.

"Instructions," commented Mr Powell. "That was all right. Very
likely; but they would be such instructions as, I thought to myself, no
ship's officer perhaps had ever been given before. It made me feel a
little sick to think what they would be dealing with, probably. But
there! Everything that happens on board ship on the high seas has got
to be dealt with somehow. There are no special people to fly to for
assistance. And there I was with that old man left in my charge. When
he noticed me looking at him he started to shuffle again athwart the
saloon. He kept his hands rammed in his pockets, he was as stiff-backed
as ever, only his head hung down. After a bit he says in his gentle
soft tone: `Did you see it?'"

There were in Powell's head no special words to fit the horror of his
feelings. So he said--he had to say something, "Good God! What were
you thinking of, Mr Smith, to try to..." And then he left off. He
dared not utter the awful word poison. Mr Smith stopped his prowl.

"Think! What do you know of thinking? I don't think. There is
something in my head that thinks. The thoughts in men, it's like being
drunk with liquor or--You can't stop them. A man who thinks will think
anything. No. But have you seen it. Have you?"

"I tell you I have! I am certain!" said Powell forcibly.