“Perhaps your boatman was crazy.  I’m sure our fellow must have been out of his mind, judging from his actions when leaving the steamer.  Why, he even warned me to keep an eye on you, sir.”

At this the Englishman removes his cigar from between his teeth, looks hard at the doctor, says “by Jove!” several times, and then laughs heartily.

“That is very funny.  Indeed, I can’t remember anything that strikes me as more peculiar.  Any one can watch me—­my actions are, I hope, above-board.  It is true I am disappointed in not having been able to have saved Lady Ruth, but so long as some one took her from the water, what does it matter?  The boatmen are mad, because they lost a craft.  Jove!  I’d like to teach them a lesson for taking out passengers in a cranky, rotten boat.  Do you know, I believe my foot went clean through the bottom when I jumped up.”

This, spoken in a frank, ingenuous way, quite disarms John.

He does not like to think evil of his fellow human beings, at any rate.

The wind is increasing meanwhile, and clouds hide the young moon.

“I believe we will have a storm,” is the last remark Sir Lionel makes, as he staggers across the rising deck and makes a plunge down into the cabin, for although a duck in the water, the Briton is no yachtsman, and possibly already feels the terrible grip of the coming mal de mer.

His words are soon verified, however, for the waves and wind continue to rise until the steamer is mightily buffeted.  Still John remains on deck.  There is a fascination for him in the scene that words cannot express.  When he has had enough he will find his state-room and sleep, for surely he needs it after being awake a good deal of the preceding night at Valetta.

Darker grow the heavens.  Thunder rolls, and the electric current cuts the air, illuminating the wild scene with a picturesque touch that is almost ghastly in its yellow white.

The steamer is well built, and in good condition to withstand the tempest, roar as it may.  John tires of the weird spectacle at last, and he, too, makes a plunge for the cabin, reaching it just in time to escape a monster wave that makes the vessel stagger, and sweeps along the deck from stem to stern.

Below he finds considerable confusion, such as is always seen on board a steamer during a storm.  Timid men looking as white as ghosts, frightened women wringing their hands and screaming with each plunge of the ship, as if they expect it to be the last.

A few foreign passengers are aboard, and they do not seem free from the contagion, though inclined to be more stoical than the Europeans.

As the steamer plunges, some of the passengers are huddled in a corner.  Loud praying can be heard, and those who are least accustomed to such things on ordinary occasions are most vehement now.

A Mohammedan is kneeling on his rug, with his face turned in the direction of Mecca, as near as he can judge, and going through with the strange rigmarole of bows and muttered phrases that constitute his religion.