Benita shook her head.

“Why not?  You are fond of dancing, and you dance very well.  Also there are plenty of officers for partners, especially Captain——­” and he checked himself.

“I know,” she said; “it would be pleasant, but—­Mr. Seymour, will you think me foolish if I tell you something?”

“I have never thought you foolish yet, Miss Clifford, so I don’t know why I should begin now.  What is it?”

“I am not going to the dance because I am afraid, yes, horribly afraid.”

“Afraid!  Afraid of what?”

“I don’t quite know, but, Mr. Seymour, I feel as though we were all of us upon the edge of some dreadful catastrophe—­as though there were about to be a mighty change, and beyond it another life, something new and unfamiliar.  It came over me at dinner—­that was why I left the table.  Quite suddenly I looked, and all the people were different, yes, all except a few.”

“Was I different?” he asked curiously.

“No, you were not,” and he thought he heard her add “Thank God!” beneath her breath.

“And were you different?”

“I don’t know.  I never looked at myself; I was the seer, not the seen.  I have always been like that.”

“Indigestion,” he said reflectively.  “We eat too much on board ship, and the dinner was very long and heavy.  I told you so, that’s why I’m taking—­I mean why I wanted to take exercise.”

“And to go to sleep afterwards.”

“Yes, first the exercise, then the sleep.  Miss Clifford, that is the rule of life—­and death.  With sleep thought ends, therefore for some of us your catastrophe is much to be desired, for it would mean long sleep and no thought.”

“I said that they were changed, not that they had ceased to think.  Perhaps they thought the more.”

“Then let us pray that your catastrophe may be averted.  I prescribe for you bismuth and carbonate of soda.  Also in this weather it seems difficult to imagine such a thing.  Look now, Miss Clifford,” he added, with a note of enthusiasm in his voice, pointing towards the east, “look.”

Her eyes followed his outstretched hand, and there, above the level ocean, rose the great orb of the African moon.  Lo! of a sudden all that ocean turned to silver, a wide path of rippling silver stretched from it to them.  It might have been the road of angels.  The sweet soft light beat upon their ship, showing its tapering masts and every detail of the rigging.  It passed on beyond them, and revealed the low, foam-fringed coast-line rising here and there, dotted with kloofs and their clinging bush.  Even the round huts of Kaffir kraals became faintly visible in that radiance.  Other things became visible also—­for instance, the features of this pair.

The man was light in his colouring, fair-skinned, with fair hair which already showed a tendency towards greyness, especially in the moustache, for he wore no beard.  His face was clean cut, not particularly handsome, since, their fineness notwithstanding, his features lacked regularity; the cheekbones were too high and the chin was too small, small faults redeemed to some extent by the steady and cheerful grey eyes.  For the rest, he was broad-shouldered and well-set-up, sealed with the indescribable stamp of the English gentleman.  Such was the appearance of Robert Seymour.