I struck a second match, assuring myself beyond doubt, and drew the blanket up over the disfigured face.

As the brief light flickered and died, I grasped the full significance of the man's death, the probable reason for his being stricken down.

Whoever had been hidden behind that picture, crouching in the passage, had overheard his confession to me.
This was vengeance wreaked upon a traitor, the executed death sentence of desperate men.

And it had just been carried out--within the hour! The murderers might be even now lurking within the shadows watching my every motion.
Again a slender match flared into tiny flame, casting about a dim radius of light, partially reassuring me that I was alone.

Before it flickered out into darkness my eyes made two discoveries--the opening of a dark passage to the left of the bunks, and a ghastly hand protruding from the upper berth.