"And yet I had to tell her that not a hair of her
head shall be touched. Not a hair."
And irrationally at the recollection of these words there seemed to be
no trouble of any kind left in the world. Now and then, however, there
were black instants when from sheer weariness he thought of nothing at
all; and during one of these he fell asleep, losing the consciousness
of external things as suddenly as if he had been felled by a blow on the
head.
When he sat up, almost before he was properly awake, his first alarmed
conviction was that he had slept the night through. There was a light in
the cuddy and through the open door of his cabin he saw distinctly Mrs.
Travers pass out of view across the lighted space.
"They did come on board after all," he thought--"how is it I haven't
been called!"
He darted into the cuddy. Nobody! Looking up at the clock in the
skylight he was vexed to see it had stopped till his ear caught the
faint beat of the mechanism. It was going then! He could not have been
asleep more than ten minutes. He had not been on board more than twenty!
So it was only a deception; he had seen no one. And yet he remembered
the turn of the head, the line of the neck, the colour of the hair,
the movement of the passing figure. He returned spiritlessly to his
state-room muttering, "No more sleep for me to-night," and came out
directly, holding a few sheets of paper covered with a high, angular
handwriting.
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