There were three hours now to wait before the reaching of Queenstown, and during those three hours the other man went to sleep.

Loide knew it, because he heard the sleeper's deep, heavy breathing, which bordered closely on snoring.

He handled his weapon, and dropped noiselessly to his stockinged feet. Paused—the same still, regular breathing.

He went to the door and noiselessly shot home the bolt. Paused—the same still, regular breathing.

Then he prepared to stop that breathing forever.[Pg 45]

[Pg 45]

CHAPTER VI

MURDER ON THE HIGH SEAS

Before his companion had entered the cabin, Loide had located everything in it.

Although in the dark, he knew the exact position of all things. So he reached the sleeper's side without a stumble or noise.

He knew where to place his hand on a towel, and he placed it. Folded it into a sort of pad, and gripped the middle in his left hand.

He bent over the sleeper, heard his breathing, and located his mouth by the feel of the warm breath. He paused to notice that the sleeper was lying on his back, then he gripped his knife—saw fashion.

In another moment he had clapped the towel over his victim's mouth, and drawn down the knife with a sawing, cutting movement.

There was just a faint, gurgling sound for a moment, a convulsive quiver of the whole of the sleeper's body, then stillness. The towel had stifled any possible cry—the knife had done the rest.

Loide stood there for a moment to recover his[Pg 46] breath. He could almost hear his own heart beating.

[Pg 46]

He tried to still it by thinking that there was not a scrap of risk, that it was all over now, that, presently, he would possess nineteen thousand pounds.

That last thought was not without its comfort. It is a fashion to speak of money as if it were dross, but as a salve to the conscience, 

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