“A little.”
“Then suppose we go to sleep?”
“All right. Goodnight!”
Then there was silence in the stateroom.
It was not long before Robert’s eyes closed. He had gone about considerable during the day and was naturally fatigued. Generally he had no difficulty in sleeping soundly, but to-night proved an exception. He tossed about in his narrow berth and he was troubled with disagreeable dreams. Sometimes it happens that such dreams visit us to warn us of impending danger.
Robert finally dreamed that a pickpocket had drawn his pocketbook from his pocket and was running away with it, and he awoke with a sudden start, his face bathed in perspiration.
It was midnight. The band had ceased playing for two hours and all who had staterooms had retired to them. Only here and there in the main saloon a passenger lay asleep in an armchair.
There was a scanty light, which entered the stateroom through a small window, and by this light Robert, half rising in bed, saw a sight that startled him.
Mr. Mortimer Fairfax, his roommate, was out of his berth. He had taken down Robert’s trousers from the nail on which he had hung them and was in the act of pulling out his wallet, which he had imprudently left in it.
This sight fully aroused the lad, and he prepared for action.