I've got a feeling I'd rather you didn't. It isn't
nerves. I'm not nervy any more than you are. I'm not suggesting that I
go now, of course. But I do ask you to think better of it and chuck the
thing."

"Why?"

"Well, one can't help one's feelings. I do feel a rum sort of conviction
at the bottom of my mind that it's not good enough. I can't explain;
there are no words for it that I know, but it's growing on me.
Intuition, perhaps."

"Intuition of what?"

"I can't tell you. But I ask you not to go."

"You were going if you'd won the toss?"

"I know."

"Then your growing intuition is only because I won it. Hanged if I don't
think you want to funk me, old man!"

"I couldn't do that. But it's different me going and you going. I've got
nothing to live for. Don't think I'm maudlin, or any rot of that sort;
but you know all about the past. I've never mentioned it to you, and,
of course, you haven't to me; and I never should have. But I will now.
I loved Mary with all my heart and soul, Tom. She didn't know how much,
and probably I didn't either. But that's done, and no man on earth
rejoices in her great happiness more than I do. And no man on earth is
going to be a better or a truer friend to you and her than, please God,
I shall be. But that being so, can't you see the rest? My life ended in
a way when the dream of my life ended. I attach no importance to living
for itself, and if anything final happened to me it wouldn't leave a
blank anywhere. You're different. In sober honesty you oughtn't to run
into any needless danger--real or imaginary. I'm thinking of Mary only
when I say that--not you."

"But I deny the danger."

"Yes; only you might listen. So did I, but I deny it no longer. The case
is altered when I tell you in all seriousness--when I take my oath if
you like--that I do believe now there is something in this. I don't
say it's supernatural, and I don't say it isn't; but I do feel deeply
impressed in my mind now, and it's growing stronger every minute,
that there's something here out of the common and really infernally
dangerous."

The other looked at him in astonishment.

"What bee has got into your bonnet?"

"Don't call it that. It's a conviction, Tom. Do be guided by me, old
chap!"

The sailor flushed a little, emptied his glass, and rose.

"If you really wanted to choke me off, you chose a funny way to do
so. Surely it only needed this to determine anybody. If you, as a sane
person, hones