"This gentleman," said Mr. Marsh, "was the officer on deck at the time," and he looked at Mr. Spokesly anxiously, as though waiting fresh details of the affair. "Yes, he had delusions," said Mr. Spokesly, clearing his throat. "Thought everybody was against him. He took drugs too. My own idea is he took the wrong stuff or too much of it, in his excitement. He was down there in his room when we crashed. And he had another--delusion I suppose you could call it. He didn't like women." "Didn't like.... Well, who does?" challenged the vigorous metallic voice with a carefully modified yet resonant laugh. One or two laughs, equally modified, floated from obscure corners where cigar-ends glowed, and the animated figure paused in its rapid movement. "I mean, no man likes women as they are unless he is a true sensualist. What we aspire to is the ideal they represent. Your captain must have been a sensualist." "Because his last breath was a sigh, you mean?" said Mr. Marsh. "I heard it you know. A long-drawn gasp." "Precisely. The sigh of a sensualist leaving the world of the senses." Mr. Spokesly stared at Mr. Marsh incredulously. "I don't think you are 'right,'" he remarked, lighting a fresh cigarette. "The captain was not that sort of man. He was timid, I admit. He was scared of losing his life." "Who isn't?" demanded the young man and was beginning another resonant laugh when Mr. Spokesly broke in. "A good many people," he said sharply, "under the right conditions. Nobody _wants_ to get killed, we know. But that does not mean they wouldn't take a risk." "Well, didn't your captain take the risk?" said Mr. Marsh eagerly. "That was just what...." "He did but he always wore one of these inflating things," said Mr. Spokesly quietly. "Vests you blow up when you want them. We had a collision, as you know, and he had it on then. And when he heard us crash I've no doubt he began to inflate it again." "Then there is no use supposing he committed suicide," said a voice. "That would be absurd." "Not altogether," replied Mr. Spokesly. "I don't know whether you gentlemen will think I am a bit mad for saying it, but after knowing him, it's quite possible he took something to kill himself and then tried to save himself from being drowned. There's a lot of difference between being dragged under in a sinking ship, and gradually getting sleepy and stiff in comfort, and don't you forget it. Humph!" There was a silence for a moment when he ceased speaking, as though he had propounded some new and incontrovertible doctrine of philosophy. The young man who was walking up and down, almost vanishing in the gloom down near the great smoke-coloured velvet curtains, halted and looked interrogatively at Mr. Spokesly. "But you have not explained why he should kill himself at all," he said. "A man as you say scared of losing his life."