He did not wait for my question. "I heard him fumbling here and just managed to squat myself down in the bath," he whispered to me. "The fellow only opened the door and put his arm in to hang the coat up. All the same--"

     "I never thought of that," I whispered back, even more appalled than before at the closeness of the shave, and marveling at that something unyielding in his character which was carrying him through so finely. There was no agitation in his whisper. Whoever was being driven distracted, it was not he. He was sane. And the proof of his sanity was continued when he took up the whispering again.

     "It would never do for me to come to life again."

     It was something that a ghost might have said. But what he was alluding to was his old captain's reluctant admission of the theory of suicide. It would obviously serve his turn--if I had understood at all the view which seemed to govern the unalterable purpose of his action.

     "You must maroon me as soon as ever you can get amongst these islands off the Cambodge shore," he went on.

     "Maroon you! We are not living in a boy's adventure tale," I protested. His scornful whispering took me up.