*****
I don't know how long I had been asleep when I awoke with the impression that my cabin door had opened. Then I remembered, with a flash, that on going to lock it as usual before getting into my bunk I had found the key to be missing. I had searched the floor of the cabin and the corridor for it in vain. Carstairs had turned in and I was loath to disturb him after his heavy day.
There was no moon on this night and my cabin was quite dark. The Naomi trembled to the thump of the propeller and at the wash-basin some fitting or other rattled a merry little jig. Otherwise, all was still. I was about to turn over on my side and go to sleep again when a slight noise caught my ear. My hand flashed instantly to the electric switch and the cabin was flooded with light.
Custrin stood in the doorway. He was in his pyjamas, bare-footed. His eyes were closed and one hand rested on the chest of drawers just inside the door. He was muttering to himself. As I sprang out of my bunk he turned round and, still muttering, made his own way back to his room next door.
I dashed after him. The corridor was quite dark and by the time I had found the switch in Custrin's cabin, the doctor was in his berth, to all intents and purposes sleeping peacefully.
"Trust all men; but cut the pack!" is a favourite saying of my brother Francis. With that document in my possession I had no desire to be disturbed by surprise visitors, even though they walked in their sleep. I now blamed myself for my slackness in not making Carstairs find the key of my door. I went straight off to his bunk.
Carstairs was asleep on his back, snoring merrily. I tapped on the side of the bunk and finding that this failed to awaken him, shook him by the arm. He never budged. The snoring stopped; but he slept on.
I shook him violently again. Never had I seen a man sleep like this! I put my two hands under his shoulders, raised him up and jerked him to and fro. But he remained a dead weight in my grip, sunk in deep sleep.
There was a step in the corridor outside. I put my head out. Mackay, the engineer, was there on his way to his bunk.
"Hsst!" I whispered. "Mackay, what do you make of this? I can't wake Carstairs...."