e. The catastrophe was still unreal to me, and the world a
dream-world. Indeed, I retain scarcely any recollections of the
traffic of that day, or of the days that followed it until we reached
Port Said.

Two things only made any striking appeal to my dulled intelligence at
that time. These were: the aloof attitude of Dr. Stacey, who seemed
carefully to avoid me; and a curious circumstance which the second
officer mentioned in conversation one evening as we strolled up and
down the main deck together.

"Either I was fast asleep at my post, Dr. Petrie," he said, "or last
night, in the middle watch, someone or something came over the side of
the ship just aft the bridge, slipped across the deck, and
disappeared."

I stared at him wonderingly.

"Do you mean something that came up out of the sea?" I said.

"Nothing could very well have come up out of the sea," he replied,
smiling slightly, "so that it must have come up from the deck below."

"Was it a man?"

"It looked like a man, and a fairly tall one, but he came and was gone
like a fish, and I saw no more of him up to the time I was relieved.
To tell you the truth, I did not report it because I thought I must
have been dozing; it's a dead slow watch, and the navigation on this
part of the run is child's play."

I was on the point of telling him what I had seen myself, two evenings
before, but for some reason I refrained from doing so, although I
think, had I confided in him, he would have abandoned the idea that
what he had seen was phantasmal; for the pair of us could not very
well have been dreaming. Some malignant presence haunted the ship; I
could not doubt this; yet I remained passive, sunk in a lethargy of
sorrow.

We were scheduled to reach Port Said at about eight o'clock in the
evening, but by reason of the delay occasioned so tragically, I learnt
that in all probability we should not arrive earlier than midnight,
whilst passengers would not go ashore until the following morning.
Karamaneh, who had been staring ahead all day, seeking a first glimpse
of her native land, was determined to remain up until the hour of our
arrival, but after dinner a notice was posted up stating that we
should not be in before two a.m. Even those passengers who were the
most enthusiastic thereupon determined to postpone, for a few hours,
their first glimpse of the land of the Pharaohs and even to forgo the
sight--one of the strangest and most interesting in the world--of