Between these glowing pictures I tried at times to slip in a question as to how the affair had come about, but it was too much of a puzzle for my mind to solve in its state of fervid imagining. All I could clearly know was that I had been tracked by those two men, and that somehow Dirk discovering my plight had swum silently up to the boat as it lay on the dark waters and so had saved me. For the rest, how they had tracked me, what they thought I knew, I put away for later consideration. And once again turning my mind to Jenny and all the wonder that lay ahead, I at last fell into a troubled sleep, broken by confused visions of mingled rapture and alarm. For with the wearing of the night a reaction began to set in. Little by little my dreams turned from pleasing glimpses of Jenny to those dark, silent bodies lying motionless under the stars. Once I awoke, thinking that again I was dealing that deadly blow; and the feel of the knife as it sank with a thud into the fellow's neck was so real that I thought I had stabbed some one in my sleep. After that the delusion came again and again with sickening reiteration, till at length it seemed to be a punishment I was doomed to undergo rather than the fulfilment of a long-cherished quest. Repeatedly I kept finding myself being dragged unwillingly to the ordeal. Before me was the victim, and always he seemed to be mocking me from under his mask, as though I were the more to be pitied of the two. The fantasy grew upon me that somehow I was striking at my own heart, till it seemed at times it was my father I was bidden to kill, and then it was Dirk, and then it was Jenny herself; at which I would struggle desperately against the fatality that was forcing me on, and would wake with a terrible dread upon me. I would try to soothe myself with the pleasanter thoughts of the days ahead; but the charm had snapped; I couldn't conjure the desirable vision back into my mind; and again I would tumble off into a feverish doze to act over and over the horrible deed of the night. Every detail returned upon me vividly, and even feelings I hadn't been conscious of at the moment surged back upon me. For always there came a stealthy fingering at my hand, and then a dagger would be slipped furtively into my fingers as though the deed I was to do were evil and accursed. And always I saw the throbbing of the blood at the victim's throat, horribly intensified. And some one would be counting; and at the cry of "Time!" I would leap forward, hating the duty to which some fearful force impelled me, and strike savagely at the spot where the blood beat. Then with the flesh sucking disgustingly at the blade as I tugged to draw it free, and with a gush of blood that blinded me as I toppled forward on to my victim, I would start awake with a sense of loathsome horror as though I had been physically sick.