‘I am grieved but not surprised,’ said I. ‘I very much fear he is going from bad to worse. I still hold with the views I expressed last evening. A time may, nay, a time must come, when you yourself, Miss Jennings, ardent as is your sisterly desire, will look to me for some resolution that shall preserve us and himself too from the schemes of a growing distemper.’ She was silent. ‘Did he tell you,’ I continued, ‘the nature of the warning?’
‘Yes,’ she answered.
‘In confidence? If so, of course——’
‘No,’ she interrupted, ‘he came from his cabin after breakfast when you had gone on deck, and I saw at once that something was very wrong with him. I was determined to get at the truth and questioned him persistently, and then he told me all.’
‘All!’ exclaimed I, opening my eyes, for the word seemed to indicate some very large matter lying behind his confession.
‘What he has seen,’ she said, ‘for two nights running has been a mysterious writing upon his cabin wall.’
‘Humph!’ said I.
‘Do you remember, Mr. Monson, that he told us of a dream in which he had seen a boat with a sort of sign-board in it on which was inscribed the word Monday in letters of flame? Well, he sees the same sort of fiery scrawl now in his cabin.’
‘What is the nature of the message?’