selected a bottle, and, rummaging in the recesses of the locker, he
found an unwashed tumbler. Into half a glass of water he dropped a
minute quantity from the bottle and drank off the mixture. The
passion had left him now, and quite suddenly he looked yellow and
very weak. He was treating himself scientifically for the
irritability to which he had given way. Then he returned to the
bank and laid down at full length. The skin of his face must have
been giving him great pain, for it was scarlet in places and exuding
from sun-blisters. He had long ago given up wiping the perspiration
from his brow, and evidently did not care to wash his face.

Presently a peacefulness seemed to come over him, for his eyes lost
their glitter and his heavy lids drooped. His arms were crossed
behind his head--before him lay the river.

Suddenly he sat upright, all eagerness and attention. Not a leaf
stirred. It was about five o'clock in the evening, the stillest
hour of the twenty-four. In such a silence the least sound would
travel almost any distance, and there was a sound travelling over
the water to him. It was nothing but a thud repeated with singular
regularity; but to his practised ears it conveyed much. He knew
that a boat was approaching, as yet hidden by some distant curve in
the river. The thud was caused by the contact of six paddles with
the gunwale of the canoe as the paddlers withdrew them from the
water.

Victor Durnovo rose again and brought from the boat a second rifle,
which he laid beside the double-barrelled Reilly which was never
more than a yard away from him, waking or sleeping. Then he waited.
He knew that no boat could reach the bank without his full