The Dark Star

It was in mid-ocean that Neeland finally came to the conclusion that

nobody on board the Volhynia was likely to bother him or his box.

The July weather had been magnificent--blue skies, a gentle wind, and

a sea scarcely silvered by a comber.

Assorted denizens of the Atlantic took part in the traditional

vaudeville performance for the benefit of the Volhynia passengers;

gulls followed the wake to mid-ocean; Mother Carey's chickens skimmed

the baby billows; dolphins turned watery flip-flaps under the bows;

and even a distant whale consented to oblige.

Everybody pervaded the decks morning, noon, and evening; the most

squeamish recovered confidence in twenty-four hours; and every

constitutional lubber concluded he was a born sailor.

Neeland really was one; no nausea born from the bad adjustment of that

anatomical auricular gyroscope recently discovered in man ever

disturbed his abdominal nerves. Short of shipwreck, he enjoyed any

entertainment the Atlantic offered him.

So he was always on deck, tranquilly happy and with nothing in the

world to disturb him except his responsibility for the olive-wood

box.

He dared not leave it in his locked cabin; he dared not entrust it to

anybody; he lugged it about with him wherever he went. On deck it

stood beside his steamer chair; it dangled from his hand when he

promenaded, exciting the amazement and curiosity of others; it

reposed on the floor under the table and beneath his attentive feet

when he was at meals.

These elaborate precautions indicated his wholesome respect for the

persistence of Scheherazade and her friends; he was forever scanning

his fellow-voyagers at table, in the smoking room, and as they

strolled to and fro in front of his steamer chair, trying to make up

his mind concerning them.

But Neeland, a clever observer of externals, was no reader of

character. The passenger list never seemed to confirm any conclusions

he arrived at concerning any of the passengers on the Volhynia. A

gentleman he mistook for an overfed broker turned out to be a popular

clergyman with outdoor proclivities; a slim, poetic-looking youth who

carried a copy of "Words and Wind" about the deck travelled for the

Gold Leaf Lard Company.

Taking them all in all, Neeland concluded that they were as harmless a

collection of reconcentrados as he had ever observed; and he was

strongly tempted to leave the box in his locked stateroom.

He decided to do so one afternoon after luncheon, and, lugging his

box, started to return to his stateroom with that intention, instead

of going on deck, as usual, for a postprandial cigarette.

There was nobody in the main corridor as he passed, but in the short,

carpeted passage leading to his stateroom he caught a glimpse of a

white serge skirt vanishing into the stateroom opposite to his, and

heard the door close and the noise of a key turned quickly.