I seemed to see a man's heart
beating in his bosom in growing agonies, until, with one last immense
palpitation, it burst, and life was gone. Then the dream changed, and I
saw a man in the sea, drowning, who seemed never to drown entirely, his
hands ever beating the air and the mocking water. I thought that I tried
many times to throw him a lighted buoy in the half-shadow, but some one
held me back, and I knew that a woman's arms were round me.
But at last the drowning man looked up and saw the woman so, and, with a
last quiver of the arms, he sank from sight. When he was gone, the
woman's arms dropped away from me; but when I turned to speak to her,
she, too, had gone.
I awoke.
Two stewards were talking in the passage, and one was saying, "She'll get
under way by daybreak, and it will be a race with the 'Porcupine' to
Aden. How the engines are kicking below!"
CHAPTER VI
MUMMERS ALL
The next day was beautiful, if not enjoyable. Stirring preparations were
being made for the ball. Boyd Madras was transferred to a cabin far
forward, but he did not appear at any meal in the saloon, or on deck.
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