ow-ranges now beginning to loom
unpleasantly close ahead.

By this time the night was coming on apace, the last of the
evil-looking birds had winged its way across the red sunset glare, and
though it was clear enough in mid-river under the banks, now steep and
unclimbable, it was already evening.

And with the darkness came a wondrous cold breath from off the
ice-fields, blowing through my lowland wrappings as though they were
but tissue. I munched a bit of honey-cake, took a cautious sip of wine,
and though I will not own I was frightened, yet no one will deny that
the circumstances were discouraging.

Standing up in the frail canoe and looking around, at the second glance
an object caught my eye coming with the stream, and rapidly overtaking
me on a strong sluice of water. It was a raft of some sort, and
something extra-ordinarily like a sitting Martian on it! Nearer and
nearer it came, bobbing to the rise and fall of each wavelet with the
last icy sunlight touching it up with reds and golds, nearer and nearer
in the deadly hush of that forsaken region, and then at last so near it
showed quite plainly on the purple water, a raft with some one sitting
under a canopy.

With a thrill of delight I waved my cap aloft and shouted--

"Ship-ahoy! Hullo, messmate, where are we bound to?"

But never an answer came from that swiftly-passing stranger, so again I
hailed--

"Put up your helm, Mr. Skipper; I have lost my bearings, and the
chronometer has run down," but without a pause or sound that strange
craft went slipping by.

That silence was more than I could stand. It was against all sea
courtesies, and the last chance of learning where I was passing away.
So, angrily the paddle was snatched from the canoe bottom, and roaring
out again--

"Stop, I say, you d---- lubber, stop, or by all the gods I will make
you!" I plunged the paddle into the water and shot my little craft
slantingly across the stream to intercept the newcomer. A single
stroke sent me into mid-stream, a second brought me within touch of
that strange craft. It was a flat raft, undoubtedly, though so
disguised by flowers and silk trailers that its shape was difficult to
make out. In the centre was a chair of ceremony bedecked with greenery
and great pale buds, hardly yet withered--oh, where had I seen such a
chair and such a raft before?

And the riddle did not long remain unanswered. Upon that seat, as I
swept up alongside and laid a sunbu