for such I afterwards discovered they were — left me to take care of my jewel-case alone.

Why had I dropped the jewel-case? Was it because I was startled by the jocular remark which identified the mysterious man with the person who had disturbed the steersman? That remark was made in mere jest. Yet I could not help thinking that it contained the truth. Nay, I knew that it was true; I knew by instinct. And being true, what facts were logically to be deduced from it? What aim had this mysterious man in compelling, by his strange influences, the innocent sailor to guide the ship towards destruction — the ship in which I happened to be a passenger?� And then there was the railway accident. The stoker had said that the engine-driver had been dazed — like the steersman. But no. There are avenues of conjecture