ery bright among
the tarnished stars. She walked aft and looked over the taffrail. It was
exactly like that other night. She half expected to hear presently the
low, rippling sound of an advancing boat. But the universe remained
without a sound. When she at last dropped into the deck chair she was
absolutely at the end of her power of thinking. "I suppose that's
how the condemned manage to get some sleep on the night before the
execution," she said to herself a moment before her eyelids closed as if
under a leaden hand.

She woke up, with her face wet with tears, out of a vivid dream of
Lingard in chain-mail armour and vaguely recalling a Crusader, but
bare-headed and walking away from her in the depths of an impossible
landscape. She hurried on to catch up with him but a throng of
barbarians with enormous turbans came between them at the last moment
and she lost sight of him forever in the flurry of a ghastly sand-storm.
What frightened her most was that she had not been able to see his face.
It was then that she began to cry over her hard fate. When she woke up
the tears were still rolling down her cheeks and she perceived in the
light of the deck-lamp d'Alcacer arrested a little way off.

"Did you have to speak to me?" she asked.

"No," said d'Alcacer. "You didn't give me time. When I came as far as
this I fancied I heard you sobbing. It must have been a delusion."

"Oh, no. My face is wet yet. It was a dream. I suppose it is five
o'clock. Thank you for being so punctual. I have something to do before
sunrise."

D'Alcacer moved nearer. "I know. You have decided to keep an appointment
on the sandbank. Your husband didn't utter twenty words in all these
hours but he managed to tell me that piece of news."

"I shouldn't have thought," she murmured, vaguely.

"He wanted me to understand that it had no importance," stated d'Alcacer
in a very serious tone.

"Yes. He knows what he is talking about," said Mrs. Travers in such
a bitter tone as to disconcert d'Alcacer for a moment. "I don't see a
single soul about the decks," Mrs. Travers continued, almost directly.

"The very watchmen are asleep," said d'Alcacer.

"There is nothing secret in this expedition, but I prefer not to call
any one. Perhaps you wouldn't mind pulling me off yourself in our small
boat."

It seemed to her that d'Alcacer showed some hesitation. She added: "It
has no importance, you know."

He bowed his assent and preceded her down the side