Altogether, it was about as dark and mysterious a business as you could well conceive, and I was glad, after tiffin, of a relief from puzzling over it any longer. Philipson began to communicate his plans to me, to outline the route he proposed we should take, and to go into details of equipment, service and cost. As I listened to his quiet, confident words and followed the lines he drew across the map with such assurance and evidently first-hand knowledge of the country it represented, my own nerves forsook me, and before long I felt as confident and enthusiastic as himself. That was always the way with Saunders Philipson. His enthusiasm was more than contagious, it was epidemic; and he seemed to be gifted with so keen a zest of life that he spoke with enthusiasm of any subject he judged worth speaking about at all. We dared not go out of the inn, of course, or even away from our wing of it. Meals were brought up to the sitting room, while Ah Sing fed himself in the cabin of the launch. The engineer-cook had come for orders that morning, and I could see that he, like myself, preserved an uneasy recollection of last night. There was fear in his eyes, the vague terror of a man who is frightened of something to which he cannot give a name; and it was not until Philipson took him by the shoulders and shook him and ordered him with fatherly severity not to be a gaping fool that the normal grin of adoration came back into Ah Sing's face. Then he went about his business and took, as I thought, a sound common-sense refuge from his terrors in hard work. Whenever I looked down from our verandah during the day I saw Ah Sing pottering to and fro with broom and rag, scouring the already speckless launch till she shone again. I turned in after dinner for a little sleep against the watches we were to stand through the night. This programme of Philipson's we carried out, but with no recurrence of the alarm. Ah Sing remained on guard on the deck of the launch till one, then came up to wake Philipson, who stood a trick till four, rousing me at that hour to see us safely through the twilit marches of dawn. At about half-past six o'clock I was putting on a last pipe before breakfast when I heard a step along the landing, and Philipson entered my room. 'If he has succeeded,' he burst out abruptly, 'he will be here at any minute, and we shall start to-night with the fall of dusk. If not--' 'You think he's likely to have failed?' 'Honestly, I do not. I liked that boy from the moment I set eyes on him. That is why I took the trouble to verify his pretensions. I had collected all the available information about Stephen Poyning within five minutes of seeing him.' Philipson stepped out through my window and walked to the end of the verandah, where it was blocked in by a cheek of brick wall. He peeped stealthily round the angle, then started back. 'Coming!' he muttered.