Presently an arm came through the cabin window, an arm long, bare, and muscular, the hand stretched to its fullest length, the fingers sinuous as all powerful fingers are, and striving to reach the pistol on the table, across the body of the sleeping man. Yet soon they desisted; they were half a foot off where the weapon lay; any effort to project more of that arm into the cabin would almost certainly awake the sleeper. So arm and hand were withdrawn, and again the evil face of Alderly gazed down upon Reginald Crafer. Once, too, the hand that had failed in its endeavour sought its owner's breast pocket, and drew forth a long glittering knife; once through the open window it raised that knife over the other's throat--all open and bare as it was!--and then the hand was drawn back, the face and arm were withdrawn; the villain had disappeared. And still Reginald slept on, unknowing how near to death he had been, how near to having the shining weapon driven through his throat. Slept on and heard nothing. Slept on while the lamp hanging in the cabin burnt itself out--he had not fed and trimmed it overnight--and until, above, through the fan-like leaves of palm, bamboo, and cyclanthus, there stole a ray of moonlight that shone down directly on the sleeping man's features. Half an hour later he began to turn restlessly, to mutter to himself--perhaps it was the flooding of the rays of the now fully uprisen moon upon his face that was awaking him--and, gradually, to return to the knowledge of where he was. Yet still he could not for a moment understand matters--the lamp was burning brightly when he went to sleep, and all was dark as pitch outside; now the cabin was illuminated by the moon, and all outside was light. Then he recognised he had been asleep, and also that he was in his yacht. He turned round to get up and go on deck to see if day was breaking, and, as he did so and put his feet to the cabin floor, he started. It was covered with water--water a foot deep--half up to his knees. Looking down, he perceived it shining in the rays of the moon as a large body of water always shines beneath those rays. "Heavens!" he exclaimed, "she is filling, sinking! She will not float another ten minutes; the water is almost flush with her deck already." And he rushed to the cabin door. He had left that door open ere he slept, he felt positive. Now it was shut. "She has listed a bit, perhaps," was the first thought that came to his mind. Yet in another moment that idea was dispelled. The _Pompeia_ was sinking on as even a keel as did ever any water-logged boat; there was no list in her. Then, almost feeling sure of what he would discover a moment later, he tried to open the door. _It was fast_.