It was a relief to see at last the first light of the morning whitening at the chinks of the door. It wasn't long before I was into my clothes and out on deck, sluicing off the fumes of the ugly dreams which seemed to cling about me like a perspiration. Then I looked out across the water, and identified the little boat still swaying on the foamless waves. In it I knew were those dead men, with sightless eyes wide open under their masks, gazing up at the still grey sky. It seemed of a sudden a terrible thing that they had been left to lie alone there all through the night, growing stiff and cold, and with the blood drying and thickening about their clothes and skin. As I gazed across the water it was as if I could see them; on their faces was a look of reproach as though I had done a cruel thing. I couldn't bear the thought of it. I turned away to find Dirk, surprised that he hadn't slipped quietly out to sea during the night. But I was more surprised to learn he had already gone ashore, and wasn't expected to return till evening. He had left instruction, however, that I wasn't to leave the ship. So there I was, imprisoned for a wearying day, with the vision ever before me of what I had done. I longed to be away from it all. Not that I was afraid that the murder would be traced to me. Somehow such an eventuality didn't occur to me; I was so weighed down with the sickening sense of blood-guiltiness which seemed to cling about me like a dripping garment, a garment soaked in blood, that I had no thought to give to any other fear than the one at my own conscience. I began to understand why a murderer should go mad. As in the night I tried to cheer myself with the consolation that I would soon be with Jenny again. I told myself I had struck the blow for her. I hadn't been guilty of murder; rather I had been the instrument in the hands of justice and retribution. But always at my heart was that paralysing shadow which numbed me from confident thinking. I knew I had done a horrible thing, and there would be a cloud over my life to the end of my days. The sunshine would never be so bright for me again. In the beautiful breaking of the dawn there would always be something of the redness of blood. The glory of the sea would be less buoyant and splendid, for there would be a subduing sense of tragedy in the swelling and subsiding of the waves. And Jenny too!... When I thought of her now a spring and a freshness seemed to have gone out of my heart. Bitterly I said that the Shadow of Fear was over me more deeply and darkly now that the evil thing was killed. Yet all this, I tried to persuade myself, was a silly fantasy, due to the chafing inaction of an idle day after the excitement of such a night. Once out upon the open seas I should be myself again.