MY family at midnight lay asleep in their staterooms. The Indian moon shone on the Violetta, which lay lifting slowly with the swell. The watchman sat forward. Ram Nad, with his chief garment wrapped about his head, was stretched on a rug on the lee side and just above the portholes of the stateroom occupied by Susannah.

I was awakened by Mrs. Ulswater's suddenly pulling my arm. It was near three o'clock in the morning.

“Listen!” she whispered. “Now, wait!” To my bewildered sense became now audible the sound of soft, regular steps in the outer cabin and on the cabin stairs leading to the deck. I arose softly.

I saw Susannah in her long night garment, of Mrs. Ulswater's making, stiffly mounting the stairs with a military step! and beyond her, on the moonlit deck, whom but Ram Nad, white-bearded, blue-turbaned, white-garmented, beckoning, retreating! I was about to advance, when at that moment Mrs. Ulswater shrieked loudly in my ear, and Ram Nad, running forward, sharply shut and bolted the cabin door. An instant's silence followed, then shouts and swift feet running aft. I rushed to the port-hole. Past it and past my face went a swiftly falling and fluttering body, which splashed in the sea. Was it Ram Nad? Was it Susannah? Mrs. Ulswater was beating the door with her hands and crying: “Catch that man, Captain Jansen! Catch that man!” Distressing moment! Norah came from her room and mingled her voice in the tumult. But there we were, locked in.

The cabin door was opened. Captain Jansen's comfortable bearded face appeared, “Yes, 'm. But he yump for das boat. He gone ofer.”

“Then catch the boat. Quick!”

“Yes'm. But I got das boat mit un grapple.”

We all emerged on the warm night, on the moonlit deck. The women had donned their shawls. This was the situation.

Ram Nad's misshaped and kilted canoe was held fast, and one end lifted from the water by a grappling-iron, at which a sailor was tugging with a rope over the rail. The two black heads of his rowers were just above the water at some distance, moving hastily shoreward, their wakes shining in the moonlight. Ram Nad was nowhere in sight. Susannah stood on deck, the watchman forward sat stiff and motionless—both of them rigid, frozen, mesmerised, wrapped up in his or her inner consciousness like a ball of yarn.

“There!” said Mrs. Ulswater. “He didn't get Susannah. Doctor, we must go away from this place. I don't like it.”

“We can weigh anchor,” I said, “surely, now as well as any time. But, my dear, as to these ossified unfortunates, I don't quite see. I'm no Ph. D. Mahatma, nor yet a brindle cat, hell-broth witch. It's mortifying, but that's my limit. I'm not on to Ram Nad's spoon motion, nor yet his lullaby. Hadn't we better wait and find another magician that knows how to untwist the charm? Because Ram Nad appears to be drowned, and these two, according to my notion, are, as you might say, tied up particularly tight.”

Mrs. Ulswater tried to wake Susannah, but could not. She was indignant. She thought that I treated the subject too lightly, in language I ought to be ashamed of, that there was nothing funny about it. Maybe not. I gave it up. I thought the situation was not without a certain sepulchral but natural gayety.

“Ashamed” I take to be a vertebrate condition. I never could fetch it. It's left out of me. I've got no centre of personality, no angles to my circumference on which to hitch a conviction of sin, never could seem to get hold of that kind of embarrassment. Calling myself a series of conventionally derogatory and ineffective names is the nearest I can come to remorse. But speaking impersonally, no doubt Mrs. Ulswater was right.

At this point Captain Jansen called: “He's yump in! Yes, 'm. He's yump!”

We ran to the rail. There Ram Nad sat in his kilted canoe, wringing the water from his garments.

Mrs. Ulswater said, “You come up here right away!”

He seemed unwilling, but Captain Jansen dropped a rope ladder, and the sailor jerked on the grapnel, rendering his position untenable. He yielded and came, wearing an expression of injured meekness. He yielded to Mrs. Ulswater's command. He spooned and crooned Susannah and the watchman into normal condition, and retired hastily to some distance, holding on to his head cloth, avoiding Susannah.

Mrs. Ulswater now reduced matters to order. The indignant Susannah was persuaded to bed. Ram Nad was put under guard. Mrs. Ulswater and Norah retired.

The anchor was raised. The Violetta got under steam. We glided away into the Indian Ocean. I remained on deck reflecting, inhaling the soft breath of the dawn, gazing at the fair palace of the night,—how marvellously roofed and lit, how floored with sparkling mosaic,—considering two things which equally excited my admiration, namely, the constitution of this world and Mrs. Ulswater.

I conversed with Ram Nad.

As far as I could gather from Ram Nad, he had first gotten into conversation with the watch, and mesmerised that: Norwegian, after which he had hung himself down from the rail and mesmerised Susannah through the port-hole. A subtle performance! He did not dare enter the cabin, having a nervous fear of Mrs. Ulswater. Mrs. Ulswater's emphatic cry had roused the crew. He had plunged over, and, rising, clutched the edge of the boat; which being grappled and the coolies fled, he had submitted, first to concealment, then to capture. Now,—he continued,—were his excellent intentions frustrated, his purposes to instruct the damsel, who had intelligence and temperament suitable,—excepting that she was a female of a tiger and not respectful of elderly men,—to instruct her in wisdom, according to the Precept, to the end that people might behold him performing wonders, and his riches increase. But how then? The righteous man endeavours. But if frustrated, let him be content. Yet he could but wonder for what reason he was now being carried away, recklessly, from his native land.

I didn't see, either, why we were carrying off Ram Nad, but it seemed to have points of interest. I didn't see any real objection to it. I suggested:

“You don't think that you ought to be skinned or drowned? Why not? It depends on Mrs. Ulswater's opinion. But see here, Ram Nad, if you ever try to mesmerise Susannah again, or anybody aboard, I'll see to the skinning privately. I'll insert Mrs. Ulswater's knitting needles into your digestion, Susannah shall stuff your mouth full of jackstraws and head cloth, and Mrs. Uls-water shall make a Presbyterian of your mangled remains. You hear me!”

Ram Nad took oath he would not.