and every faculty on the qui vive--much as a man might
grope for a time in a dark strange room, then find a door and step out
into broad daylight.

Only there was no light other than in the luminous clarity of his mind.
Even the illumination in the saloon had been dimmed down for the night,
as he could tell by the tarnished gleam beneath his stateroom door.

Still, not everyone had gone to bed. The very manner of his waking
informed him that he was not alone; for the life Lanyard had led had
taught him to need no better alarm than the entrance of another person
into the place where he lay sleeping. All animals are like that, whose
lives hang on their vigilance.

Able to see nothing, he still felt a presence, and knew that it waited,
stirless, within arm's-length of his head. Without much concern, he
thought of Popinot, that "phantom Popinot" of Monk's derisive naming.

Well, if the vision Liane had seen on deck had taken material form here
in his stateroom, Lanyard presumed it meant another fight, and the
last, to a finish, that is to say, to a death.

Without making a sound, he gathered himself together, ready for a trap,
and as noiselessly lifted a hand toward the switch for the electric
light, set in the wall near the head of the bed. But in the same breath
he heard a whisper, or rather a mutter, a voice he could not place in
its present pitch.

"Awake, Monsieur Delorme?" it said. "Hush! Don't make a row, and never
mind the light."

His astonishment was so overpowering that instinctively his tensed
muscles relaxed and his hand fell back upon the bedding.

"Who the deuce----?"

"Not so loud. It's me--Mussey."

Lanyard echoed witlessly: "Mussey?"

"Yes. I don't wonder you're surprised, but if you'll be easy you'll
understand pretty soon why I had to have a bit of a talk with you
without anybody's catching on."

"Well," Lanyard said, "I'm damned!"

"I say!" The subdued mutter took on a note of anxiety. "It's all right,
isn't it? I mean, you aren't going to kick up a rumpus and spill the
beans? I guess you must think I've got a hell of a gall, coming in on
you like this, and I don't know as I blame you, but... Well, time's
getting short, only two more days at sea, and I couldn't wait any
longer for a chance to have a few minutes' chin with you."

The mutter ceased and held an expectant pause. Lanyard said nothing.
But he was conscious that the speaker occupied a chair by the bed, and
knew that he was b