"He is mad!" muttered Peroo, under his breath. "And he threw me
aside like a bundle of dung-cakes. Well, he will not know his
death. The boat cannot live an hour here even if she strike
nothing. It is not good to look at death with a clear eye."

He refreshed himself again from the tin box, squatted down in the
bows of the reeling, pegged, and stitched craft, staring through
the mist at the nothing that was there. A warm drowsiness crept
over Findlayson, the Chief Engineer, whose duty was with his
bridge. The heavy raindrops struck him with a thousand tingling
little thrills, and the weight of all time since time was made
hung heavy on his eyelids. He thought and perceived that he was
perfectly secure, for the water was so solid that a man could
surely step out upon it, and, standing still with his legs apart
to keep his balance - this was the most important point - would
be borne with great and easy speed to the shore. But yet a better
plan came to him. It needed only an exertion of will for the
soul to hurl the body ashore as wind drives paper, to waft it
kite-fashion to the bank. Thereafter - the boat spun dizzily -
suppose the high wind got under the freed body? Would it tower
up like a kite and pitch headlong on the far-away sands, or would
it duck about, beyond control, through all eternity? Findlayson
gripped the gunnel to anchor himself, for it seemed that he was
on the edge of taking the flight before he had settled all his
plans. Opium has more effect on the white man than the black.
Peroo was only comfortably indifferent to accidents. "She cannot
live," he grunted. "Her seams open already. If she were even a
dinghy with oars we could have ridden it out; but a box with
holes is no good. Finlinson Sahib, she fills."