Prompted by I know not what, I lay still and simulated heavy
breathing; for it was evident to me that I must be partly visible to
the watcher, so bright was the night. For ten--twenty--thirty seconds
he studied me in absolute silence, that gaunt thing so like a mummy;
and, my eyes partly closed, I watched him, breathing heavily all the
time. Then making no more noise than a cat, he moved away across the
deck, and I could judge of his height by the fact that his small
swathed head remained visible almost to the time that he passed to the
end of the white boat which swung opposite my stateroom.
In a moment I slipped quietly to the floor, crossed and peered out of
the port-hole; so that at last I had a clear view of the sinister
mummy-man. He was crouching under the bow of the boat, and attaching
to the white rails, below, a contrivance of a kind with which I was
not entirely unfamiliar. This was a thin ladder of silken rope, having
bamboo rungs, with two metal hooks for attaching it to any suitable
object.
The one thus engaged was, as Karamaneh had declared, almost
superhumanly thin. His loins were swathed in a sort of linen garment,
and his head so bound about, turban fashion, that only his gleaming
eyes remained visible. The bare limbs and body were of a dusky yellow
colour, and, at sight of him, I experienced a sudden nausea.
My pistol was in my cabin-trunk, and to have found it in the dark,
without making a good deal of noise, would have been impossible.
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