Suddenly he went to the door, determined that if Bateese was outside he would get some satisfaction out of him or challenge him to a fight right there.  He beat against it, first with one fist and then with both.  He shouted.  There was no response.  Then he exerted his strength and his weight against the door.  It was solid.

He was half turned when his eyes discovered, in a corner where the lamplight struck dimly, his pack and clothes.  In thirty seconds he had his pipe and tobacco.  After that for half an hour he paced up and down the cabin, while the storm crashed and thundered &s if bent upon destroying all life off the face of the earth.

Comforted by the company of his pipe, Carrigan did not beat at the door again.  He waited, and at the end of another half-hour the storm had softened down into a steady patter of rain.  The thunder had traveled east, and the lightning had gone with it.  David opened the window again.  The air that came in was rain-sweet, soft, and warm.  He puffed out a cloud of smoke and smiled.  His pipe always brought his good humor to the surface, even in the worst places.  St. Pierre’s wife had certainly had a good soaking.  And in a way the whole thing was a bit funny.  He was thinking now of a poor little golden-plumaged partridge, soaked to the skin, with its tail-feathers dragging pathetically.  Grinning, he told himself that it was an insult to think of her and a half-drowned partridge in the same breath.  But the simile still remained, and he chuckled.  Probably she was wringing out her clothes now, and the men were cursing under their breath while trying to light a fire.  He watched for the fire.  It failed to appear.  Probably she was hating him for bringing all this discomfort and humiliation upon her.  It was not impossible that tomorrow she would give Bateese permission to brain him.  And St. Pierre?  What would this man, her husband, think and do if he knew that his wife had given up her bedroom to this stranger?  What complications might arise if he knew!

It was late—­past midnight—­when Carrigan went to bed.  Even then he did not sleep for a long time.  The patter of the rain grew less and less on the roof of the bateau, and as the sound of it droned itself off into nothingness, slumber came.  David was conscious of the moment when the rain ceased entirely.  Then he slept.  At least he must have been very close to sleep, or had been asleep and was returning for a moment close to consciousness, when he heard a voice.  It came several times before he was roused enough to realize that it was a voice.  And then, suddenly, piercing his slowly wakening brain almost with the shock of one of the thunder crashes, it came to him so distinctly that he found himself sitting up straight, his hands clenched, eyes staring in the darkness, waiting for it to come again.

Somewhere very near him, in his room, within the reach of his hands, a strange and indescribable voice had cried out in the darkness the words which twice before had beat themselves mysteriously into David Carrigan’s brain—­“Has any one seen black Roger Audemard?  Has any one seen black Roger Audemard?”