Everyone was asleep when the light of the full moon caused a subdued lustre under the awnings, and a greenish light in Leonie’s wide-open, staring eyes, as she suddenly swung herself over the side of her bunk and slid unhurt to the floor.

She made an arresting picture as she stood listening intently, her flimsy garment falling away from her shoulders, leaving the slender white back bare to the waist, while she held handfuls of the transparent stuff crushed against her breast, upon which lay a jewel hung from a gold chain.

Her feet were bare, her arms were bare, and her tawny mass of hair hung in two thick scented plaits to her dimpled knees; and she repeated some words over and over again like one insane or delirious.

“Ham abhi ate hai—­ham abhi ate hai.”

Which being translated means “I come—­I come.”

Without the slightest hesitation she opened the door of No. 1 state-room, which she had had to herself after Port Said, and which, as anyone who has travelled on this particular boat will know, gives on to the dining saloon; passed swiftly along the narrow passage past the notice board and the head steward’s cabin, and stood among the human cocoons on deck.

For a moment she paused irresolute, turned, and swiftly mounted the companion-way to the bridge deck, her bare feet making no sound, her beautiful body shining like ivory through the flimsy garment she held gathered to her breast.

Oh! well for her was it that the ship slept, and that the awnings made it almost impossible for those on the bridge to see what took place on the deck.

Though a report of sleep-walking on board would only have served to broaden the lines of laughter in the chief officer’s mercurial soul, and deepen the lines of cynicism around the second officer’s cynical mouth when the one relieved the other on the bridge at the matutinal hour of four a.m.

And very well for Leonie was it that the captain had forbidden sleeping on his deck, and that the high caste native who had come aboard at Colombo was sitting on the port side as she approached.

Owing to his high caste, and the purity of his habits, the young native had passed the days apart from his fellow-passengers since he had come aboard; and the days left were too few for the white folk to show any curiosity concerning the handsome man.

You don’t feel curious about anything after almost five weeks seafaring; you feel kind of stunned.

Leonie, therefore, had not noticed him particularly as he sat apart with his delicate oval face behind a book when she approached, or passed his chair; neither had she felt the gentle luminous eyes resting upon her from the nape of her sunkissed neck to her slim ankle.

Nor did he now, long after midnight, make any sign when, without touching the rails, she came swiftly up the companion-ladder, bending her bronze head to miss the edge of the awning; and he made no movement as she sped past him, crossed the deck to the starboard rail, and putting both hands upon it, swung her body back as you do when you are going to vault clear.