aloft.

'Beautifully.'

'Capital!'

Scratching at the greasy wall to keep the dinghy close to it, I
received in succession our stores, and stowed the cargo as best I
could, while the dinghy sank lower and lower in the water, and its
precarious superstructure grew higher.

'Catch!' was the final direction from above, and a damp soft parcel
hit me in the chest. 'Be careful of that, it's meat. Now back to the
stairs!'

I painfully acquiesced, and Davies appeared.

'It's a bit of a load, and she's rather deep; but I _think_ we shall
manage,' he reflected. 'You sit right aft, and I'll row.'

I was too far gone for curiosity as to how this monstrous pyramid was
to be rowed, or even for surmises as to its foundering by the way. I
crawled to my appointed seat, and Davies extricated the buried sculls
by a series of tugs, which shook the whole structure, and made us
roll alarmingly. How he stowed himself into rowing posture I have not
the least idea, but eventually we were moving sluggishly out into the
open water, his head just visible in the bows. We had started from
what appeared to be the head of a narrow loch, and were leaving
behind us the lights of a big town. A long frontage of lamp-lit quays
was on our left, with here and there the vague hull of a steamer