This vague apprehension had restrained him at first.  He was able now to eat and sleep with that fearful weapon by his side, with the conviction of its power always in mind.  It had not been arrived at by any reflective process; but once the idea had entered his head, the conviction had followed overwhelmingly in a multitude of observed little facts to which before he had given only a languid attention.  The abrupt and faltering intonations of the deep voice; the taciturnity put on like an armor; the deliberate, as if guarded, movements; the long immobilities, as if the man he watched had been afraid to disturb the very air:  every familiar gesture, every word uttered in his hearing, every sigh overheard, had acquired a special significance, a confirmatory import.

Every day that passed over the Sofala appeared to Sterne simply crammed full with proofs—­with incontrovertible proofs.  At night, when off duty, he would steal out of his cabin in pyjamas (for more proofs) and stand a full hour, perhaps, on his bare feet below the bridge, as absolutely motionless as the awning stanchion in its deck socket near by.  On the stretches of easy navigation it is not usual for a coasting captain to remain on deck all the time of his watch.  The Serang keeps it for him as a matter of custom; in open water, on a straight course, he is usually trusted to look after the ship by himself.  But this old man seemed incapable of remaining quietly down below.  No doubt he could not sleep.  And no wonder.  This was also a proof.  Suddenly in the silence of the ship panting upon the still, dark sea, Sterne would hear a low voice above him exclaiming nervously—­

“Serang!”

“Tuan!”

“You are watching the compass well?”

“Yes, I am watching, Tuan.”

“The ship is making her course?”

“She is, Tuan.  Very straight.”

“It is well; and remember, Serang, that the order is that you are to mind the helmsmen and keep a lookout with care, the same as if I were not on deck.”

Then, when the Serang had made his answer, the low tones on the bridge would cease, and everything round Sterne seemed to become more still and more profoundly silent.  Slightly chilled and with his back aching a little from long immobility, he would steal away to his room on the port side of the deck.  He had long since parted with the last vestige of incredulity; of the original emotions, set into a tumult by the discovery, some trace of the first awe alone remained.  Not the awe of the man himself—­he could blow him up sky-high with six words—­rather it was an awestruck indignation at the reckless perversity of avarice (what else could it be?), at the mad and somber resolution that for the sake of a few dollars more seemed to set at naught the common rule of conscience and pretended to struggle against the very decree of Providence.

You could not find another man like this one in the whole round world—­thank God.  There was something devilishly dauntless in the character of such a deception which made you pause.