Part 53 (2/2)

With an unconscious sigh, not entirely of relief, Neeland opened his cigarette case, found it empty, turned and went slowly below with the idea of refilling it.

They were dancing somewhere on deck; the music of the s.h.i.+p's orchestra came to his ears. He paused a moment on the next deck to lean on the rail in the darkness and listen.

Far beneath him, through a sea as black as onyx, swept the reflections of the lighted ports; and he could hear the faint hiss of foam from the curling flow below.

As he turned to resume his quest for cigarettes, he was startled to see directly in front of him the heavy figure of a man--so close to him, in fact, that Neeland instinctively threw up his arm, elbow out, to avoid contact.

But the man, halting, merely lifted his hat, saying that in the dim light he had mistaken Neeland for a friend; and they pa.s.sed each other on the almost deserted deck, saluting formally in the European fas.h.i.+on, with lifted hats.

His spirits a trifle subdued, but still tingling with the shock of discovering a stranger so close behind him where he had stood leaning over the s.h.i.+p's rail, Neeland continued on his way below.

Probably the big man had made a mistake in good faith; but the man certainly had approached very silently; was almost at his very elbow when discovered. And Neeland remembered the light-shot depths over which, at that moment, he had been leaning; and he realised that it would have been very easy for a man as big as that to have flung him overboard before he had wit to realise what had been done to him.

Neither could he forget the curious gleam in the stranger's eyes when a ray from a deck light fell across his shadowy face--unusually small eyes set a little too close together to inspire confidence. Nor had the man's slight accent escaped him--not a Teutonic accent, he thought, but something fuller and softer--something that originated east of Scutari, suggesting the Eurasian, perhaps.

But Neeland's soberness was of volatile quality; before he arrived at his stateroom he had recovered his gaiety of spirit. He glanced ironically at the closed door of Golden Beard as he fitted his key into his own door.

”A lively lot,” he thought to himself, ”what with Scheherazade, Golden Beard, and now Ali Baba--by jinx!--he certainly did have an Oriental voice!--and he looked the part, too, with a beak for a nose and a black moustache a la Enver Pasha!”

Much diverted by his own waxing imagination, he turned on the light in his stateroom, filled the cigarette case, turned to go out, and saw on the carpet just inside his door a bit of white paper folded c.o.c.ked-hat fas.h.i.+on and addressed to him.

Picking it up and unfolding it, he read:

May I see you this evening at eleven? My stateroom is 623. If there is anybody in the corridor, knock; if not, come in without knocking.

I mean no harm to you. I give my word of honour. Please accept it for as much as your personal courage makes it worth to you--its face value, or nothing.

Knowing you, I may say without flattery that I expect you. If I am disappointed, I still must bear witness to your courage and to a generosity not characteristic of your s.e.x.

You have had both power and provocation to make my voyage on this s.h.i.+p embarra.s.sing. You have not done so. And self-restraint in a man is a very deadly weapon to use on a woman.

I hope you will come. I desire to be generous on my part. Ask yourself whether you are able to believe this. You don't know women, Mr.

Neeland. Your conclusion probably will be a wrong one.

But I think you'll come, all the same. And you will be right in coming, whatever you believe.

Ilse Dumont.

It was a foregone conclusion that he would go. He knew it before he had read half the note. And when he finished it he was certain.

Amused, his curiosity excited, grateful that the adventure had not yet entirely ended, he lighted a cigarette and looked impatiently at his watch.

It lacked half an hour of the appointed time and his exhilaration was steadily increasing.

<script>