The boatswain, sleepy and disgusted, arriving on the poop, found the
second officer doubled up over the end of the skylight in a pose which
might have been that of severe pain. And his voice was so changed that
the man, though naturally vexed at being turned out, made no comment on
the plea of sudden indisposition which young Powell put forward.

The rapidity with which the sick man got off the poop must have
astonished the boatswain. But Powell, at the moment he opened the door
leading into the saloon from the quarter-deck, had managed to control his
agitation. He entered swiftly but without noise and found himself in the
dark part of the saloon, the strong sheen of the lamp on the other side
of the curtains visible only above the rod on which they ran. The door
of Mr. Smith's cabin was in that dark part. He passed by it assuring
himself by a quick side glance that it was imperfectly closed. "Yes," he
said to me. "The old man must have been watching through the crack. Of
that I am certain; but it was not for me that he was watching and
listening. Horrible! Surely he must have been startled to hear and see
somebody he did not expect. He could not possibly guess why I was coming
in, but I suppose he must have been concerned." Concerned indeed! He
must have been thunderstruck, appalled.

Powell's only distinct aim was to remove the suspected tumbler. He had
no other plan, no other intention, no other thought. Do away with it in
some manner. Snatch it up and run out with it.

You know that complete mastery of one fixed idea, not a reasonable but an
emotional mastery, a sort of concentrated exaltation. Under its empire
men rush blindly through fire and water and opposing violence, and
nothing can stop them--unless, sometimes, a grain of sand. For his blind
purpose (and clearly the thought of Mrs. Anthony was at the bottom of it)
Mr. Powell had plenty of time. What checked him at the crucial moment
was the familiar, harmless aspect of common things, the steady light, the
open book on the table, the solitude, the peace, the home-like effect of
the place. He held the glass in his hand; all he had to do was to vanish
back beyond the curtains, flee with it noiselessly into the night on
deck, fling it unseen overboard. A minute or less. And then all that
would have happened would have been the wonder at the utter disappearance
of a glass tumbler, a ridiculous riddle in pantry-affairs beyond the wit
of anyon