till all the oceans are dry and all the trees in the world are
felled--and after. And we were all crowded together on the
precarious little platform, and Selina occupied every bit as much
room as I did, and Charlotte's legs didn't dangle over any more
than Harold's. The pitiless sun overhead beat on us all with
tropic impartiality, and the hungry sharks, whose fins scored the
limitless Pacific stretching out on every side, were impelled by
an appetite that made no exceptions as to sex. When we shared
the ultimate biscuit and circulated the last water-keg, the girls
got an absolute fourth apiece, and neither more nor less; and
the only partiality shown was entirely in favour of
Charlotte, who was allowed to perceive and to hail the saviour-
sail on the horizon. And this was only because it was her turn
to do so, not because she happened to be this or that. Surely,
the rules of the raft were the rules of life, and in what, then,
did these visitor-ladies' grievance consist?

Puzzled and a little sulky, I pushed open the door of the
deserted nursery, where the raft that had rocked beneath so many
hopes and fears still occupied the ocean-floor. To the dull eye,
that merely tarries upon the outsides of things, it might have
appeared unromantic and even unraftlike, consisting only as it
did of a round sponge-bath on a bald deal towel-horse placed flat
on the floor. Even to myself much of the recent raft-glamour
seemed to have departed as I half-mechanically stepped inside and
curled myself up in it for a solitary voyage. Once I was
in, however, the old magic and mystery returned in full flood,
when I discovered that the inequalities of the towel-horse caused
the bath to rock, slightly, indeed, but easily and incessantly.
A few minutes of this delightful motion, and one was fairly