The man who had burst into the saloon shouting “Where is my wife?” reappeared from somewhere, and standing near to me started to undress hastily.  I watched him.  He had taken off his coat, waistcoat, and boots, when a quiet, amused voice said:  “I shouldn’t do that if I were you.  It’s rather chilly, you know.  Besides, think of the ladies.”

Without a word he began with equal celerity to reassume his clothes.  I turned to the speaker.  It was the youth who had dragged the girl away from me when I first came up on deck.  She was on his arm, and had a rug over her head.  Both were perfectly self-possessed.  The serenity of the young man’s face particularly struck me.  I was not to be out-done.

“Have a cigarette?” I said.

“Thanks.”

“Do you happen to know what all this business is?” I asked him.

“It’s a collision,” he said.  “We were struck on the port paddle-box.  That saved us for the moment.”

“How did it occur?”

“Don’t know.”

“And where’s the ship that struck us?”

“Oh, somewhere over there—­two or three miles away.”  He pointed vaguely to the northeast.  “You see, half the paddle-wheel was knocked off, and when that sank, of course the port side rose out of the water.  I believe those paddle-wheels weigh a deuce of a lot.”

“Are we going to sink?”

“Don’t know.  Can tell you more in half an hour.  I’ve got two life-belts hidden under a seat.  They’re rather a nuisance to carry about.  You’re shivering, Lottie.  We must take some more exercise.  See you later, sir.”

And the two went off again.  The girl had not looked at me, nor I at her.  She did not seem to be interested in our conversation.  As for her companion, he restored my pride in my race.

I began to whistle.  Suddenly the whistle died on my lips.  Standing exactly opposite to me, on the starboard side, was the mysterious being whom I had last seen in the railway carriage at Sittingbourne.  He was, as usual, imperturbable, sardonic, terrifying.  His face, which chanced to be lighted by the rays of a deck lantern, had the pallor and the immobility of marble, and the dark eyes held me under their hypnotic gaze.

Again I had the sensation of being victimized by a conspiracy of which this implacable man was the head.  I endured once more the mental tortures which I had suffered in the railway carriage, and now, as then, I felt helpless and bewildered.  It seemed to me that his existence overshadowed mine, and that in some way he was connected with the death of Alresca.  Possibly there was a plot, in which the part played by the jealousy of Carlotta Deschamps was only a minor one.  Possibly I had unwittingly stepped into a net of subtle intrigue, of the extent of whose boundaries and ramifications I had not the slightest idea.  Like one set in the blackness of an unfamiliar chamber, I feared to step forward or backward lest I might encounter some unknown horror.