his position. He might go to sleep!

It needed but ten minutes under the suggestion of that idea, before he
realised that he was going to sleep!

He rubbed his eyes and handled his gun. He had never before realised the
intensely soporific effect of the American sun, of the American air, the
drowsy, sleep-compelling uproar of Niagara. Hitherto these things had on
the whole seemed stimulating....

If he had not eaten so much and eaten it so fast, he would not be so
heavy. Are vegetarians always bright?...

He roused himself with a jerk again.

If he didn't do something, he would fall asleep, and if he fell asleep,
it was ten to one they would find him snoring, and finish him forthwith.
If he sat motionless and noiseless, he would inevitably sleep. It was
better, he told himself, to take even the risks of attacking than that.
This sleep trouble, he felt, was going to beat him, must beat him in
the end. They were all right; one could sleep and the other could watch.
That, come to think of it, was what they would always do; one would do
anything they wanted done, the other would lie under cover near at hand,
ready to shoot. They might even trap him like that. One might act as a
decoy.

That set him thinking of decoys. What a fool he had been to throw his
cap away. It would have been invaluable on a stick--especially at night.

He found himself wishing for a drink. He settled that for a time by
putting a pebble in his mouth. And then the sleep craving returned.

It became clear to him he must attack. Like many great generals before
him, he found his baggage, that is to say his tin of corned beef, a
serious impediment to mobility. At last he decided to put the beef
loose in his pocket and abandon the tin. It was not perhaps an ideal
arrangement, but one must make sacrifices when one is campaigning. He
crawled perhaps ten yards, and then for a time the possibilities of the
situation paralysed him.

The afternoon was still. The roar of the cataract simply threw up that
immense stillness in relief. He was doing his best to contrive the
death of two better men than himself. Also they were doing their best to
contrive his. What, behind this silence, were they doing.

Suppose he came upon them suddenly and fired, and missed?

10

He crawled, and halted listening, and crawled again until nightfall, and
no doubt the German Alexander and his lieutenant did the same. A large
scale map of Goat Island marked with red and blu