“AS you know, Miss Norah,” the captain said gravely, “I discourage early rising. It’s a bad thing—leads to chronic attacks of superfluous energy, and embroils passengers with the deck-hands.”
“Especially the last!” said Norah, laughing.
“Well—possibly. Deck hands are busy people and passengers are not; therefore passengers should remain peaceably in bed until they won’t be in the way. Which remarks are not intended to apply to you, Miss Norah.”
“How would they?” Jim laughed. “There’s nothing of the Spartan early riser about Norah.”
“I’m delighted to hear it,” the captain said. “All the same, I’m about to advise you to turn out early to-morrow. We’ll be in Cape Town about six in the morning, and you mustn’t miss the sunrise over the mountain. It’s one of the finest things in the world.”
“Oh, I’m glad you told me, captain,” Norah said. “I’ll tell my steward to call me.”
“Yes—don’t forget. The harbour is an interesting one altogether; but the mountains are grand, and coming in, the view changes each moment. We shall probably be going out in the dusk, so you must be sure of seeing the entrance.”
They had had a quick and uneventful run round the Cape of Good Hope from Durban, missing altogether the dreaded “Agulhas roll” which is the bugbear of the sea-sick. Every one had revelled in the luxury of lit decks and open port-holes, in the security lent by the knowledge that a British cruiser was just ahead of the Perseus. To-morrow night the old restrictions would be in full force again—but first there would be Cape Town, and twelve hours ashore. Norah had always had vague longings to see Cape Town; no port on the homeward route interested her half so much as the city nestling at the foot of Table Mountain. She went to bed early, leaving everything in readiness for the morning start—determined to waste nothing of that precious twelve hours.
It was still dark when she awoke, with a start, from a confused dream, in which she had been chased by an apparently infuriated motor, shrieking defiance at her. As she tried to collect her scattered faculties the sound she had heard in her dream came again—a long, hoarse shriek.
“What on earth——?” she queried, sitting up. She switched on her light—it was two o’clock. Voices were heard along the corridor, to be drowned by another evil howl.