“I have no point of view.  You’re rather exasperating, and don’t seem to understand that, even if I might have changed my mind before, it’s impossible now.”

“That’s really only a foolish sort of pride.  If I chose my words clumsily—­”

“You did.  The devil and all his angels wouldn’t make me climb down now.”

The younger left him, and returned in a minute or two with the revolver.

“Good-night,” he said.

“Good-night, old boy.  Thank you.  Loaded?”

“In all the chambers.  Funny you should want it.”

“Take it back, then.”

But Henry did not answer, and they parted.  Each sought his own bedroom, and while Lennox retired at once and might have been expected to pass a night more mentally peaceful than the other, in reality it was not so.

The younger slept ill, while May suffered no emotion but annoyance.  He was contemptuous of Henry.  It seemed to him that he had taken a rather mean and unsporting line, nor did he believe for a moment that he was honest.  Lennox had a modern mind; he had been through the furnace of war; he had received a first-class education.  It seemed impossible to imagine that he spoke the truth, or that his sudden suspicion of real perils, beyond human power to combat, could be anything but a spiteful attempt to put May off, after he himself had lost the toss.  Yet that seemed unlike a gentleman.  Then the allusion to Mary perturbed the sailor.  He could not quarrel with the words, but he resented the advice, seeing what it was based upon.

His anger lessened swiftly, however, and before he started his adventure he had dismissed Henry from his mind.  He put on pyjamas and a dressing-gown, took a candle, a railway-rug, his watch, and the loaded revolver.

Then he walked quietly down the corridor to the Grey Room.  On reaching it his usual good temper returned, and he found himself entirely happy and contented.  He unlocked the forbidden entrance, set his candle by the bed, and locked the door again from inside.  He rolled up his dressing-gown for a pillow, and placed his watch and revolver and candle at his hand on a chair.  A few broken reflections drifted through his mind, as he yawned and prepared to sleep.  His brain brought up events of the day—­a missed shot, a good shot, lunch under a haystack with Mary and Fayre-Michell’s niece.  She was smart and showy and slangy—­cheap every way compared with Mary.  What would his wife think if she knew he was so near?  Come to him for certain.  He cordially hoped that he might not be recalled to his ship; but there was a possibility of it.  It would be rather a lark to show the governor over the Indomitable.  She was a “hush-hush” ship—­one of the wonders of the Navy still.  Funny that the Italian roof of the Grey Room looked like a dome, though it was really flat.  A cunning trick of perspective.

It was a still and silent night, moonless, very dark, and very tranquil.  He went to the window to throw it open.