body of men held together by a community of inglorious toil and by fidelity to a certain standard of conduct, I can’t explain.  You may call it an unhealthy curiosity if you like; but I have a distinct notion I wished to find something.  Perhaps, unconsciously, I hoped I would find that something, some profound and redeeming cause, some merciful explanation, some convincing shadow of an excuse.  I see well enough now that I hoped for the impossible—­for the laying of what is the most obstinate ghost of man’s creation, of the uneasy doubt uprising like a mist, secret and gnawing like a worm, and more chilling than the certitude of death—­the doubt of the sovereign power enthroned in a fixed standard of conduct.  It is the hardest thing to stumble against; it is the thing that breeds yelling panics and good little quiet villainies; it’s the true shadow of calamity.  Did I believe in a miracle? and why did I desire it so ardently?  Was it for my own sake that I wished to find some shadow of an excuse for that young fellow whom I had never seen before, but whose appearance alone added a touch of personal concern to the thoughts suggested by the knowledge of his weakness—­made it a thing of mystery and terror—­like a hint of a destructive fate ready for us all whose youth—­in its day—­had resembled his youth?  I fear that such was the secret motive of my prying.  I was, and no mistake, looking for a miracle.  The only thing that at this distance of time strikes me as miraculous is the extent of my imbecility.  I positively hoped to obtain from that battered and shady invalid some exorcism against the ghost of doubt.  I must have been pretty desperate too, for, without loss of time, after a few indifferent and friendly sentences which he answered with languid readiness, just as any decent sick man would do, I produced the word Patna wrapped up in a delicate question as in a wisp of floss silk.  I was delicate selfishly; I did not want to startle him; I had no solicitude for him; I was not furious with him and sorry for him:  his experience was of no importance, his redemption would have had no point for me.  He had grown old in minor iniquities, and could no longer inspire aversion or pity.  He repeated Patna? interrogatively, seemed to make a short effort of memory, and said:  “Quite right.  I am an old stager out here.  I saw her go down.”  I made ready to vent my indignation at such a stupid lie, when he added smoothly, “She was full of reptiles.”

’This made me pause.  What did he mean?  The unsteady phantom of terror behind his glassy eyes seemed to stand still and look into mine wistfully.  “They turned me out of my bunk in the middle watch to look at her sinking,” he pursued in a reflective tone.  His voice sounded alarmingly strong all at once.  I was sorry for my folly.  There was no snowy-winged coif of a nursing sister to be seen flitting in the perspective of the ward; but away in the middle of a long row of empty iron bedsteads an accident case from some ship in the Roads