Be that as it may, this tardy decision to sail on the _Orissa_ at least put an end to my trials of irresolution, of which I could not help feeling heartily ashamed; and as the very brief intervening time was fully employed in packing my effects and in making other preparations for departure, I was spared the usual cycle of farewell visits of ceremony which I greatly dreaded. On the day appointed therefore I found myself settled on the _Orissa_, a comfortable boat, and we proceeded on our homeward voyage, which proved wholly uneventful until we reached the Suez Canal. Here for the first time we received ominous reports of a colossal upheaval amongst the Great Powers of Europe, whilst our natural alarm was increased tenfold on learning at Port Said of the impending declaration of war between England and the German Empire. I shall not linger over the seething excitement on board our ship as we hurried at full speed through the Mediterranean in hourly fear of being sighted by the _Goeben_ or some other German cruiser. It was therefore with an immense sense of relief that we found ourselves under lee of the guns of Gibraltar before we emerged thence into the waters of the Atlantic. We were about a day's sail from the Straits, with the weather still very hot and enervating, although we were north of the tropics, when at my usual hour for retiring I sought my cabin. I am generally a light but restful sleeper, and have rarely experienced even in its most transient form the curse of insomnia; but on this particular night, which was the seventh of August, I found myself a prey to a perfect demon of unrest. It was not the effect of the heat, to which I am thoroughly accustomed; nor was it the strain and stress of the late intelligence of war, for my extensive reading in the domain of the supernatural has long divested my mind of all sublunary foreboding; no, it was, I am convinced, the close approach of some event of the first magnitude in which I was marked out to play a considerable part. (But perhaps I am describing my predominant sensations by the light of subsequent happenings; still I can at least faithfully aver I was conscious of some imminent crisis that demanded my fullest energies.) For several hours I lay thus in my berth, my brain active and alert and prepared to detect the smallest sound or motion that was suspicious amid the ordinary routine of ship life during the night watches. But no such occasion arose, nor was there any conceivable excuse for my nervous tension and distressing wakefulness, which grew so unbearable that the first luminous flush of early dawn forced me to leave my bed. With a deep sigh of relief I vaulted to the floor, donned my overcoat and slippers, seized my pipe and tobacco pouch, and thus lightly equipped sought the open air.