Chance

The rapidity with which the sick man got off the poop must have

astonished the boatswain. But Powell, at the moment he opened the door

leading into the saloon from the quarter-deck, had managed to control his

agitation. He entered swiftly but without noise and found himself in the

dark part of the saloon, the strong sheen of the lamp on the other side

of the curtains visible only above the rod on which they ran. The door

of Mr. Smith's cabin was in that dark part. He passed by it assuring

himself by a quick side glance that it was imperfectly closed. "Yes," he

said to me. "The old man must have been watching through the crack. Of

that I am certain; but it was not for me that he was watching and

listening. Horrible! Surely he must have been startled to hear and see

somebody he did not expect. He could not possibly guess why I was coming

in, but I suppose he must have been concerned." Concerned indeed! He

must have been thunderstruck, appalled.

Powell's only distinct aim was to remove the suspected tumbler. He had

no other plan, no other intention, no other thought. Do away with it in

some manner. Snatch it up and run out with it.

You know that complete mastery of one fixed idea, not a reasonable but an

emotional mastery, a sort of concentrated exaltation. Under its empire

men rush blindly through fire and water and opposing violence, and

nothing can stop them--unless, sometimes, a grain of sand. For his blind

purpose (and clearly the thought of Mrs. Anthony was at the bottom of it)

Mr. Powell had plenty of time. What checked him at the crucial moment

was the familiar, harmless aspect of common things, the steady light, the

open book on the table, the solitude, the peace, the home-like effect of

the place. He held the glass in his hand; all he had to do was to vanish

back beyond the curtains, flee with it noiselessly into the night on

deck, fling it unseen overboard. A minute or less. And then all that

would have happened would have been the wonder at the utter disappearance

of a glass tumbler, a ridiculous riddle in pantry-affairs beyond the wit

of anyone on board to solve. The grain of sand against which Powell

stumbled in his headlong career was a moment of incredulity as to the

truth of his own conviction because it had failed to affect the safe

aspect of familiar things. He doubted his eyes too. He must have dreamt

it all! "I am dreaming now," he said to himself. And very likely for a

few seconds he must have looked like a man in a trance or profoundly

asleep on his feet, and with a glass of brandy-and-water in his hand.