I WAS violently excited. I was sure that I had hit on the right trail at last. One thing was clear, I must not move out of the cabin. The asafœtida had got to be borne. I examined my facts again.
To-morrow was the 22nd, and at 1 A.M. or 1 P.M. something would happen. I plumped for 1 A.M. It was now seven o'clock. In six hours I should know.
I don't know how I got through the evening. I retired to my cabin fairly early. I had told the stewardess that I had a cold in the head and didn't mind smells. She still seemed distressed, but I was firm.
The evening seemed interminable. I duly retired to bed, but in view of emergencies I swathed myself in a thick flannel dressing-gown, and encased my feet in slippers. Thus attired I felt that I could spring up and take an active part in anything that happened.
What did I expect to happen? I hardly knew. Vague fancies, most of them wildly improbable, flitted through my brain. But one thing I was firmly convinced of, at one o'clock something would happen.
At various times, I heard my fellow-passengers coming to bed. Fragments of conversation, laughing good-nights, floated in through the open transom. Then, silence. Most of the lights went out. There was still one in the passage outside, and there was therefore a certain amount of light in my cabin. I heard eight bells go. The hour that followed seemed the longest I had ever known. I consulted my watch surreptitiously to be sure I had not overshot the time.
