"I can mend the sleep, captain," said I. "You must do the rest."
"Good God!" he shook his head and stood up.
"No," said I, "sit down. I'll see to you. Let me ring."
In a few minutes I had my case of instruments, and carefully extracted what I wanted, while Day looked on feverishly impatient.
"I'm going to do what has already been done this night," I said gravely, "but in a better cause."
I raised the syringe, and bade him put back the sleeve of his pyjama. A rush of pain went through my arm which had been bruised and battered in the sea, and suddenly the cabin went from me. For the first and only time in my life I fainted.
When I came to Day was bending over me, glass in hand, a look of solicitude on his face.
"It seems we have changed places," said I feebly, "and that you are my physician."
He set the glass down. "Doctor, I did you less than justice just now," he said quickly. "But I have had my troubles."
I picked myself up slowly. "I will now resume," I said, smiling.
"If you are able," he said doubtfully, and then, "Heavens, I should like just one hour of sleep."
"You shall sleep till eight bells, I promise you," I answered, and once more I took the syringe.
He sighed as if in anticipation. "Doctor," he said, as he lay back. "Not a word of this. We must talk about the other thing. I don't like my officers. I'll tackle this question to-morrow. There's something in it."
I bade him "good night," and left with the conviction that in the difficulties before us Captain Day would count for little. To face such emergencies as I felt must now be faced we had no need of a neurotic subject.
Nevertheless I was mistaken in one particular. Day sent for me next morning, and I found him in quite a brisk, cheerful state. He did not allude to what had occurred between us, but came straight to the subject of the plot.
"Nothing has happened, doctor," he said.
I knew nothing could happen, for the disappearance of Adams meant that the conspirators were not ready with their plans. Otherwise they would not have been so determined to rob me of my evidence. This I explained, and he listened attentively.
"You see the difficulty," he said at last. "There is no corroboration of your story, and I can take no action. I will have an inquiry into Adams's disappearance, of course, but I fear nothing will come of it." He rubbed his hands nervously. "I wish to God it would."
This was astounding from the man, but, as I looked into his eyes, I could see how deeply his nervous system had been shocked, and once more I despaired of such a captain in such circumstances. I carried my misgivings to Legrand, with whom the events of the night had seemed to bring me in closer relationship.
"The old man's all right," he said. "A better seaman doesn't exist. There's nothing he doesn't know."
"Except human nature," said I.
"Well, that may be. But who knows much about that?" said the second officer, setting his sextant. "You say we're slumbering over a volcano. I daresay we are. It's more or less what we're paid to do, and take all risks. Things are quiet enough now, anyway."
Was this another sceptic, where I had sought to find an ally?
"I am used by this to ridicule," I began drily.
"Who on earth is ridiculing you?" he asked. "You have only given us something to think of—and something pretty tall, too."
I shrugged my shoulders. "I suppose it is my word against Holgate's," I said wearily.
"Holgate's!" he said, lowering his sextant swiftly. "Holgate's! I wouldn't trust Holgate if he were on a dozen oaths—not if he were swung at a yard-arm, and were making Christian confession," he said passionately.
"Nor would I," I said softly after a pause. We exchanged glances. He resumed his sextant.
"The only thing to be done," he said, "is to keep a watch. We shall know shortly. Excuse me, doctor, I must take the bearings."
Routine must go on aboard ship, but this cool attitude, reasonable as it was, was not to my taste in my condition. Things moved as smoothly as before; the watch came and went, and the bells tolled regularly; but with the knowledge that I had that something evil was brewing, I fretted and worried and grew out of temper. The powers that were responsible for the safety of the ship and her good conduct were indifferent to the danger, or else incredulous. I alone knew how incompetent was the captain to secure his vessel, and the attitude of "Mr. Morland" filled me with contempt. It was very well for a royal prince in his palace, surrounded by his guard, servitors, and dependants, to assume an autocratic attitude, and take things for granted. But it was another case when he had deliberately abandoned that security and launched himself upon a romantic, not to say quixotic, career, in which nothing was certain. Yet upon the promenade deck the Prince and his sister took their constitutionals as if nothing had happened or would happen, and, as before, Mlle. Trebizond joined them, and her laugh floated down to us, musical and clear. Would nothing make them understand the peril in which they stood?
In all this vexation of spirit I still found time to be amused by Lane. The affair of Adams was, necessarily, public property, and the inquiry promised by Day was in process. Adams was gone, gone overboard, as I knew, and I could have put my hand on his murderer, if I could not also identify the man who had made an attempt to be mine. Lane, on the rumour of the night's proceedings reaching him, sought me, and complained. It was ludicrous, but it was characteristic of the man, as I had come to know him.
"Where do I come in?" he asked plaintively. "You might have given me a call, doctor."
"I wish I had been sleeping as sound as you," I said.
"Oh, hang it, man, it's dull enough on this beastly boat. If there's any row on, I'm in it."
"Do you think you guess how big a row you may be on?" I asked him.
"Oh, well, it's infernally dull," he grumbled, which, when you come to think of it, was a surprising point of view.
The Adams inquiry ended in what must necessarily be called an open verdict. The evidence of the boatswain and Pentecost, one of the hands, assured that. Both testified to the fact that they were awakened in the still hours by a splash, and one thought it was accompanied by a cry, but was not sure. At any rate, the boatswain was sufficiently aroused to make search, and to discover that Adams was missing, and subsequently that the port-hole was open. He had then, as he declared, reported the matter at once to the officer of the watch, who was Holgate. Holgate came to the captain's cabin, as has been related. There was no discrepancy to be noted in the stories of the two men, nor was there any inherent improbability in their tale. So, as I have said, though no verdict was given, the verdict might be considered as open, and we had got no further. The captain, however, took one precaution, for the key of the ammunition chest was put in Barraclough's charge. What others did I know not, but I slept with a loaded revolver under my pillow.
We were now within a week of Buenos Ayres, and had come into summer weather. When we passed the twentieth parallel the heat was overpowering. We took to ducks, and the ladies, as we could observe, to the lightest of cotton dresses. For all, however, that we saw of them they might have been dwelling in another sphere, as, indeed, they were. The steward alone had the privilege of communion with them, and he, being a distant fellow, had nothing to say, though, I believe, Lane cross-questioned him rigorously.
I have said that we saw nothing of our passengers, but I, at least, was to see them more nearly very soon, and that in the most unexpected manner. One evening I had retired to my cabin and was stretched in my bunk, reading one of the gilded books from the yacht's library, when I was interrupted by a knock on the door.
"Come in," I called idly, and the door promptly opened, and to my amazement Miss Morland stood before me. She wore a plain evening dress of chiffon, very pretty to the eye, and over her head and shoulders a mantle of silk lace. She had naturally, as I had observed on my previous encounters, a sparkle of colour in her face; but now she had lost it, and was dead white of complexion under the electric light.