Was this another sceptic, where I had sought to find an ally?
"I am used by this to ridicule," I began drily.
"Who on earth is ridiculing you?" he asked. "You have only given us something to think of--and something pretty tall, too."
I shrugged my shoulders. "I suppose it is my word against Holgate's," I said wearily.
"Holgate's!" he said, lowering his sextant swiftly. "Holgate's! I wouldn't trust Holgate if he were on a dozen oaths--not if he were swung at a yard-arm, and were making Christian confession," he said passionately.
"Nor would I," I said softly after a pause. We exchanged glances. He resumed his sextant.
"The only thing to be done," he said, "is to keep a watch. We shall know shortly. Excuse me, doctor, I must take the bearings."
Routine must go on aboard ship, but this cool attitude, reasonable as it was, was not to my taste in my condition. Things moved as smoothly as before; the watch came and went, and the bells tolled regularly; but with the knowledge that I had that something evil was brewing, I fretted and worried and grew out of temper. The powers that were responsible for the safety of the ship and her good conduct were indifferent to the danger, or else incredulous. I alone knew how incompetent was the captain to secure his vessel, and the attitude of "Mr. Morland" filled me with contempt. It was very well for a royal prince in his palace, surrounded by his guard, servitors, and dependants, to assume an autocratic attitude, and take things for granted. But it was another case when he had deliberately abandoned that security and launched himself upon a romantic, not to say quixotic, career, in which nothing was certain. Yet upon the promenade deck the Prince and his sister took their constitutionals as if nothing had happened or would happen, and, as before, Mlle. Trebizond joined them, and her laugh floated down to us, musical and clear. Would nothing make them understand the peril in which they stood?
In all this vexation of spirit I still found time to be amused by Lane. The affair of Adams was, necessarily, public property, and the inquiry promised by Day was in process. Adams was gone, gone overboard, as I knew, and I could have put my hand on his murderer, if I could not also identify the man who had made an attempt to be mine. Lane, on the rumour of the night's proceedings reaching him, sought me, and complained. It was ludicrous, but it was characteristic of the man, as I had come to know him.