"About you," she answered. "Ah!" "Warning me against you." "Dear me! Aren't you terrified?" "I am not terrified," she replied, "but I think it best to tell you that he also has suspicions, absurd though it may seem, of Phillips and the doctor." "Why not the purser and captain, while he's about it?" Jocelyn said coolly. "Every one on this boat seems to have got the nerves. They searched my stateroom this morning." "Searched your stateroom?" she repeated. "Do you mean while you were out?" "Not a bit of it," he replied. "They dragged me up at half-past eight this morning--the captain, purser and a steward--fetched up my trunk and searched all my possessions." "What for?" she asked, with a sudden chill. He smiled at her reassuringly. "Something they didn't find! Something," he added, after a slight pause, "which they never will find!" Towards midday, Jocelyn Thew abandoned a game of shuffleboard, and, leaning against the side of the vessel, gazed steadily up at the wireless operating room. The lightnings had been playing around the mast for the last ten minutes without effect. He turned towards one of the ship's officers who was passing. "Anything gone wrong with the wireless?" he enquired. "The operator's ill, sir," was the prompt reply. "We've only one on board, as it happens, so we are rather in a mess." Jocelyn strolled away aft, considering the situation. He found Crawshay seated in an elaborate deck chair and immersed in a novel. "I hear the wireless has gone wrong," he remarked, stopping in front of him. Crawshay glanced up blandly. "What's that?" he demanded. "Wireless? Why, it's been going all the morning." "There has been no one there to take the messages, though. If anything happens to us, we shall be in a nice pickle." Crawshay shivered. "I wish you people wouldn't suggest such things," he said, a little testily. "I was just trying to get all thought of this most perilous voyage out of my mind, with the help of a novel here. From which do you seriously consider we have most to fear," he went on, "mines, submarines, or predatory vessels of the type of the _Blucher_?" "The latter, I should think," Jocelyn replied. "They say that submarines are scarcely venturing so far out just now." There was a brief silence. Jocelyn Thew was apparently engaged in trying to fit a cigarette into his holder. "Specially hard luck on you," he remarked presently, "if anything happened when you've taken so much trouble to get on board." "It would be exceedingly annoying," Crawshay declared, with vigour, "added to which I am not in a state of health to endure a voyage in a small boat. I have been this morning to look at our places, in case of accident. I find that I am expected to wield an oar long enough to break my back." Jocelyn Thew smiled. The other man's peevishness seemed too natural to be assumed. "I expect you'll be glad enough to do your bit, if anything does happen to us," he observed.