Findlayson shook two or three of the dark-brown pellets into his
hand, and hardly knowing what he did, swallowed them. The stuff
was at least a good guard against fever - the fever that was
creeping upon him out of the wet mud - and he had seen what Peroo
could do in the stewing mists of autumn on the strength of a dose
from the tin box.

Peroo nodded with bright eyes. "In a little - in a little the
Sahib will find that he thinks well again. I too will -" He dived
into his treasure-box, resettled the rain-coat over his head, and
squatted down to watch the boats. It was too dark now to see beyond
the first pier, and the night seemed to have given the river new
strength. Findlayson stood with his chin on his chest, thinking.
There was one point about one of the piers - the seventh - that he
had not fully settled in his mind. The figures would not shape
themselves to the eye except one by one and at enormous intervals
of time. There was a sound rich and mellow in his ears like the
deepest note of a double-bass - an entrancing sound upon which he
pondered for several hours, as it seemed. Then Peroo was at his
elbow, shouting that a wire hawser had snapped and the stone-boats
were loose. Findlayson saw the fleet open and swing out fanwise
to a long-drawn shriek of wire straining across gunnels.

"A tree hit them. They will all go," cried Peroo. "The main
hawser has parted. What does the Sahib do? "

An immensely complex plan had suddenly flashed into Findlayson's
mind. He saw the ropes running from boat to boat in straight
lines and angles - each rope a line of white fire. But there was