I once heard his father, in a moment of exasperation, call him a neurotic. He was not that; he seemed indeed always perfectly healthy, with steady normal nerves. But in this world of youthful practicality, Arturo was miscast. Apparently he cared not at all for achievement. He was a dreamer by temperament, rather than a doer. Of sharpened, poetic sensibilities, he seemed content to live in a world of fancy of his own creating, watching our busy, bustling realities pass him by. A pale, romantic-looking boy, his face beautiful rather than handsome; dark, lustrous, expressive eyes, with heavy girlish lashes; a mouth large, with sensitive girlish lips, and a shock of raven-black, wavy hair. Yet there was nothing effeminate about Arturo Plantet. His firm chin saved him from that. His voice was soft, yet strongly masculine. I have seen his big eyes fill up with unbidden tears at a jibe from his father; but he was never petulant, and when angered or hurt, a very manly dignity sat upon him. Nor was he lacking in a manly physical courage. He cared nothing for athletics. He could have been, I am sure, a champion swimmer--he seemed to take to the water naturally, and swam and dived like a little dolphin; but he would not train, nor enter any contests; he disdained them. But I remember that when he was fifteen, his older sister, Polly, was once endangered in the rapids of a Canadian stream. Against all reason Arturo leaped into it and saved her, with a resulting broken leg and arm. Such was Arturo Plantet, who now sat in my cabin with his interminable violin. He was always very silent; often I wondered what fancies were drifting behind those brooding dark eyes. This ineffectual dreamer! Yet our busy, practical world of science--so far removed from dreams--was destined soon to be plunged into a turmoil with Arturo playing a leading, if unknown and unappreciated part. Strange commentary! And I think that I am not wholly without a strain of romance myself, for it affects me strongly to look back upon it. * * * * * He glanced up at me. “That’s very pretty, Jeff, don’t you think so?” “What? Oh, yes, I suppose so. Aren’t you going to bed, Arturo? That accursed liner--I don’t know why they can’t guard against things like that--puts us two hours late. We’ll be fully that long making Pearl Harbor. The old man’s furious.” “Is he? I say, this is a fugue of my own invention, Jeff. Listen how I weave in the two voices.” I rang up our chief engineer to see what he thought of the chances; it would be too bad, on this our third voyage, to be late. The London office would score us. “Wait a minute, Arturo, shut that damn thing off--” And then Randall came running down the passage outside. I caught his words: “The Malaysia’s sinking! We’re nearest to her--”