loof 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, some one 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 flash, 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 learned
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 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 forego the sight--one of the
strangest and most interesting in the world--of Port Said by night.

For my own part, I confess that all the interest and hope with which
I had looked forward to our arrival, had left me, and often I detected
tears in the eyes of Karamaneh whereby I knew that the coldness in my
heart had manifested itself even to her. I had sustained the greatest
blow of my