In White Raiment

by William Le Queux

Strange noises aroused me slowly to a sense of my helplessness. My head seemed heavy as lead, my brain incapable of receiving any impression, my throat contracted as though by a diphtheritic swelling.

A low continued roaring sounded in my ears, accompanied by a curious unusual jarring. Slow to fully realise my position, it was some moments before I became convinced that the regular throbbing beneath my head was caused by machinery, and that the steady motion to and fro was the rocking of the waves.

I opened my eyes and found that it was broad daylight. To the left was a round opening closed by glass—a porthole through which the summer sun was shining, its rays being shut out now and then by the bright green water that rose against it as the waves hissed past. I was on board a ship at sea. The cabin was a narrow, rather dirty place, and the mattress on which I was lying was hard, being filled with straw. It was not a passenger cabin, that was certain, for the beams across were black and dirty, and swinging on a nail were a set of unclean yellow oil-skins and a sou’-wester.

So sudden and unaccountable had been my transition from the bed-chamber in that mysterious house of the Wynds’, wherein my wife had been murdered, to that narrow pallet out at sea, that at first I could not believe it possible. I raised myself and looked around in wonder, half inclined to believe that the past events had been but a dream.

In that instant all the curious circumstances which had followed my call to the house with the big portico came vividly before me in rapid succession, the crafty actions of the Tempter and my wife’s marvellous beauty most of all. With her, I had fallen a victim to the two ingenious conspirators, her father and the Major. It had, no doubt, been intended that I should die; yet certain of the Tempter’s actions seemed out of keeping with the others, thus rendering the enigma more complete.

The pains in my head and the swelling in my mouth and throat were sufficient, however, to prove that the past was no chimera of the imagination. I had met with an adventure stranger, perhaps, than that experienced by any other man, for I had been both bridegroom and widower within an hour.

With some little difficulty I rose, but my legs were weak and cramped, and this, combined with the rolling of the ship, caused me to quickly seat myself on the edge of the narrow berth. My nerves were unstrung, my brain dulled, and the giddiness that seized me was such as I had never before experienced. It was not mal de mer, for I had travelled much by sea and had never experienced nausea, even in roughest weather. No; I had, by moistening the cigarette with the saliva, absorbed a strong dose of some anaesthetic, and its effect had been to a great extent irritant as well. Only my robust constitution had succeeded in throwing it off; the dose must, I felt confident, have killed a weaker man.

In a few minutes I succeeded in standing erect, and struggled to the cabin door. I turned the handle, but could not open it. I was locked in.

Again I seated myself upon my mattress and tried to calmly review the situation. Of a sudden I bethought myself of the amulet I had taken from the neck of my dead wife, and thrusting my hand into my pocket, was gratified to find it still there, together with a pair of white gloves that the Tempter had given me.

I took it out and carefully examined it. The chain was a very fine but strong one, and the curious little charm of plain gold on that side that would lay against the skin, was beautifully set with diamonds which now sparkled and flashed with a thousand fires in the brilliant sunset. About an inch and a half long, it was of most delicate workmanship. I had seen in jewellers’ windows in Bond Street and Regent Street many articles of jewellery—brooches, breast-pins, and the like—in the form of a note of interrogation, but never one made in this manner. It was different to all the others, a costly ornament without doubt, for all the stones were well matched, and, as far as I could judge, not being an expert, of the first water.