"Don't go yet," he cried. "Keep on tellin' me I'll sleep, and then perhaps I shall. You look as if you could will people to do things. You're that quiet sort. Will me, there's a good girl. Tell me again I'll sleep to-night." It was getting late; the music had stopped and the dancers had disappeared. Miss Ross did not feel over comfortable alone with Sir Langham so far away from everybody else. Especially as she saw he was excited and nervous. Had he been drinking? she wondered. But she remembered that he had proclaimed far and wide that, because of his gout, he'd made a vow to touch no form of "alcoholic liquor" on the voyage, except on Christmas and New Year's Day. It was six days since Christmas, and already Aden was left behind. No, it was just sheer nervous excitement, and if she could do him any good.... "I feel sure you will sleep to-night," she said soothingly, "if you will do as I tell you." "I'll do any mortal thing. I've got a deck-cabin to myself. Will you keep willin' me when you turn in?" "Go to bed now," she said firmly. "Undress quickly, and then think about nothing ... and I'll do the rest." "You will, you promise?" "Yes, but you must keep your mind a perfect blank, or I can't do anything." She stood up tall and straight. The moonlight caught her grey hair and burnished it to an aureole of silver. With many grunts Sir Langham pulled himself out of his chair. "No smokin'-room, eh?" "Good night," Miss Ross said firmly, and left him. "Don't forget to ask your sister's husband about that chap in the P.W.D.," he called after her. "He's sure to know all about it. What's his name?--your brother-in-law, I mean." But Miss Ross had disappeared. "Now how the devil," he muttered, "am I to make my mind, _my_ mind, a perfect blank?" Two hours later Sir Langham's snores grievously disturbed the occupants of adjacent cabins. In hers, Miss Ross sat by the open porthole reading and re-reading the mail that had reached her at Aden. CHAPTER II JAN'S MAIL _Bombay, December 13th._ My Dear Jan,