The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers | Page 4

of the dead man; and above the manifold noises of the steamer, and the perpetual lapping of the calm water against my ear, came the whisper, "I'm watched! I know I'm watched!"
CHAPTER II.
I was all right next day. I suppose I had had what women call nerves. I never knew what nerves meant before, because no two women I ever met seemed to have the same kind. If it is slamming a door that upsets one woman's nerves, it may be coming in on tiptoe that will upset another's. You never can tell. But I am sure it was nerves with me that first night; I know I have never felt so queer since. Oh yes I have, though--once. I was forgetting; but I have not come to that yet.
We had a splendid passage home. Most of the passengers were in good spirits at the thought of seeing England again, and even the children were not so troublesome as I have known them. I soon made friends with some of the nicest people, for I generally make friends easily. I do not know how I do it, but I always seem to know what people really are at first sight. I always was rather a judge of character.
There was one man on board whom I took a great fancy to from the first. He was a young American, travelling about, as Americans do, to see the world. I forget where he had come from--though I believe he told me--or why he was going to London; but a nicer young fellow I never met. He was rather simple and unsophisticated, and with less knowledge of the world than any man I ever knew; but he did not mind owning to it, and was as grateful as possible for any little hints which, as an older man who had not gone through life with his eyes shut, I was of course able to give him. He was of a shy disposition I could see, and wanted drawing out; but he soon took to me, and in a surprisingly short time we became friends. He was in the next cabin to mine, and evidently wished so much to have been with me, that I tried to get another man to exchange; but he was grumpy about it, and I had to give it up, much to young Carr's disappointment. Indeed, he was quite silent and morose for a whole day about it, poor fellow. He was a tall handsome young man, slightly built, with the kind of sallow complexion that women admire, and I wondered at his preferring my company to that of the womankind on board, who were certainly very civil to him. One evening when I was rallying him on the subject, as we were leaning over the side (for though it was December it was hot enough in the Red Sea to lounge on deck), he told me that he was engaged to be married to a beautiful young American girl. I forget her name, but I remember he told it me--Dulcima Something--but it is of no consequence. I quite understood then. I always can enter into the feelings of others so entirely. I know when I was engaged myself once, long ago, I did not seem to care to talk to any one but her. She did not feel the same about it, which perhaps accounted for her marrying some one else, which was quite a blow to me at the time. But still I could fully enter into young Carr's feelings, especially when he went on to expatiate on her perfections. Nothing, he averred, was too good for her. At last he dropped his voice, and, after looking about him in the dusk, to make sure he was not overheard, he said:
"I have picked up a few stones for her on my travels; a few sapphires of considerable value. I don't care to have it generally known that I have jewels about me, but I don't mind telling you."
"My dear fellow," I replied, laying my hand on his shoulder, and sinking my voice to a whisper, "not a soul on board this vessel suspects it, but so have I."
It was too dark for me see his face, but I felt that he was much impressed by what I had told him.
"Then you will know where I had better keep mine," he said, a moment later, with his impulsive boyish confidence. "How fortunate I told you about them. Some are of considerable value, and--and I don't know where to put them that they will be absolutely safe. I never carried about jewels with me before, and I am nervous about losing them, you understand." And he nodded significantly at me. "Now where would you advise me to keep them?"
"On