Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 7.djvu/77

Rh cabin, which was numbered 775. It was the last in this dim passage, and must have been lighted by the lowest light-ports in the hull of the Great Eastern; there was no name on the door, and Harry Drake had no desire that anyone should know the place where he had confined Ellen.

I could not distinctly hear the voice of the unfortunate woman; her song was only a string of unconnected sentences like one speaking in sleep, but at the same time it was sweet and plaintive.

Although I had no means of recognizing her identity, I had no doubt but that it was Ellen singing.

I listened for some minutes, and was just going away, when I heard a step on the landing. Could it be Harry Drake? I did not wish him to find me here, for Fabian's and Ellen's sake; fortunately I could get on deck, without being seen, by a passage leading round the cabins. However, I stopped to know who it really was that I had heard. The darkness partially hid me, and standing behind an angle of the passage I could see without being myself in sight.

In the meantime the sound of the footsteps had ceased, and with it, as a strange coincident, Ellen's voice. I waited and soon the song began again, and the boards creaked under a stealthy tread; I leaned forward and, in the dim, uncertain light which glimmered through the cracks of the cabin doors, I recognized Fabian.

It was my unhappy friend! What instinct could have led him to this place? Had he then discovered the young woman's retreat before me? I did not know what to think. Fabian slowly advanced along the passage, listening, following the voice, as if it was a thread drawing him unconsciously on, and in spite of himself. It seemed to me that the song grew fainter as he approached, and that the thread thus held was about to break. Fabian went quite near to the cabin doors and then stopped.

How those sad accents must have rent his heart! and how his whole being must have thrilled as he caught some tone in the voice, which reminded him of the past! But how was it, ignorant as he was of Harry Drake being on board, that he had any suspicion of Ellen's presence? No, it was impossible; he had only been attracted by the plaintive ac-