attempt has failed; I do not doubt that
others will be made. At present, you will enact the role of
physician-in-attendance upon Karamaneh, and will put it about for whom
it may interest that a slight return of her nervous trouble is causing
her to pass uneasy nights. I can safely leave this part of the case to
you, I think?"

I nodded rapidly.

"I haven't troubled to make inquiries," added Smith, "but I think it
probable that the regulation respecting closed ports will come into
operation immediately we have passed the Straits, or at any rate
immediately there is any likelihood of bad weather."

"You mean--"

"I mean that no alteration should be made in our habits. A second
attempt along similar lines is to be apprehended--to-night. After that
we may begin to look out for a new danger."

"I pray we may avoid it," I said fervently.

As I entered the saloon for breakfast in the morning, I was subjected to
solicitous inquiries from Mrs. Prior, the gossip of the ship. Her room
adjoined Karamaneh's and she had been one of the passengers aroused by
the girl's cries in the night. Strictly adhering to my role, I explained
that my patient was threatened with a second nervous breakdown, and was
subject to vivid and disturbing dreams. One or two other inquiries I met
in the same way, ere escaping to the corner table reserved to us.

That iron-bound code of conduct which rules the Anglo-Indian, in the
first days of the voyage had threatened to ostracize Karamaneh and Aziz,
by reason of the Eastern blood to which their brilliant but peculiar
type of beauty bore witness. Smith's attitude, however--and, in a
Burmese commissioner, it constituted something of a law--had done much
to break down the barriers; the extraordinary beauty of the girl had
done the rest. So that now, far from finding themselves shunned, the
society of Karamaneh and her romantic-looking brother was universally
courted. The last inquiry that morning, respecting my interesting
patient, came from the bishop of Damascus, a benevolent old gentleman
whose ancestry was not wholly innocent of Oriental strains, and who sat
at a table immediately behind me. As I settled down to my porridge, he
turned his chair slightly and bent to my ear.

"Mrs. Prior tells me that your charming friend was disturbed last
night," he whispered. "She seems rather pale this morning; I sincerely
trust that she is suffering no ill-effect."

I swung around, with a smile. Owing to my