myself cautiously along the bars on my stomach. A good idea
immediately occurred to me. I had jumped as a matter of course
into the flannels which one naturally wears in the tropics. To
their lightness I already owed my life, but the common cricket-belt
which was part of the costume was the thing to which I owe it most
of all. Loosening this belt a little, as I tucked my toes
tenaciously under the endmost bar, I undid and passed the two ends
under one of the middle bars, fastening the clasp upon the other
side. If I capsized now, well, we might go to the bottom together;
otherwise the hen-coop and I should not part company in a hurry;
and I thought, I felt, that she would float.

Worn out as I was, and comparatively secure for the moment, I will
not say that I slept; but my eyes closed, and every fibre rested,
as I rose and slid with the smooth, long swell. Whether I did
indeed hear voices, curses, cries, I cannot say positively to this
day. I only know that I raised my head and looked sharply all ways
but the way I durst not look for fear of an upset. And, again, I
thought I saw first a tiny flame, and then a tinier glow; and as my
head drooped, and my eyes closed again, I say I thought I smelt
tobacco; but this, of course, was my imagination supplying all the
links from one.






CHAPTER IV