At the same time he saw Captain Monk, who had been on the bridge with the officer of the watch for several hours, come aft with weary shoulders sagging, and go below by the saloon companionway.  And Lanyard smiled knowingly and assured himself that went well—­ca va bien!—­his star held still in the ascendant.

There remained on the bridge only Mr. Collison and the man at the wheel.

At the fourth blast after five bells Lanyard put a match to his cigarette.  But he did not puff more than to get the tobacco well alight.  He even held his breath, and felt his body shaken by the pulsations of his anxious heart precisely as the body of the Sybarite was shaken by the pulsations of her engines.

With the next succeeding fog signal darkness absolute descended upon the vessel, shrouding it from stem to stern like a vast blanket of blackness.

Mr. Mussey had not failed to keep his pact of treachery.

Lanyard was out of his chair before the first call of excited remonstrance rang out on deck—­to be echoed in clamour.  His cigarette stopped behind, on the taffrail, carefully placed at precisely the height of his head, its little glowing tip the only spot of light on the decks.  No matter whether or not it were noted; no precaution is too insignificant to be important when life and death are at issue.

There was nothing of that afternoon’s unsureness of foot in the way Lanyard moved forward.  Passing the engine-room ventilators he heard the telegraph give a single stroke; Mr. Collison had only then recovered from, his astonishment sufficiently to signal to slow down.  A squeal of the speaking-tube whistle followed instantly; and Lanyard set foot upon the bridge in time to hear Mr. Collison demanding to know what the sanguinary hades had happened down there.  Whatever reply he got seemed to exasperate him into incoherence.  He stuttered with rage, gasped, and addressed the man at the wheel.

“I’ve got a flash-lamp in my cabin.  That’ll show us the compass card at least.  Stand by while I run down and get it.”

The man mumbled an “Aye, aye, sir.”  Retreating footsteps were just audible.

Neither speaker had been visible to Lanyard.  By putting out a hand he could have touched the helmsman, but his body made not even the shadow of a silhouette against the sky.  The fog was rendering the night the simple and unqualified negation of light.

And in that time of Stygian gloom violence was done swiftly, surely, and without mercy; with pity, yes, and with regret.  Lanyard was sorry for the man at the wheel.  But what was to be done could not be done in any other way.

The surprise aided him, for the fellow offered barely a show of opposition.  His astounded faculties had no more than recognised the call for resistance when he was powerless in Lanyard’s hands.  Swung bodily away from the wheel, he went over the rail to the forward deck like a bag of sugar.  Immediately Lanyard turned to the binnacle.