had to knock him down and sit on him in a
quiet corner.

"While I sat keeping guard on him I must have dropped asleep myself; for
the next I remember was waking up to find the beach deserted and the
boat gone. This put me in a sweat, of course; but after groping some
while about the foreshore (which was as dark as the inside of your hat),
I tripped over a rope and so found a native boat. O'Hara wouldn't wake,
so I just lifted him on board like a sack, tossed in his cornet and my
bombardon, tumbled in on top of them, and started to row for dear life
towards the ship's light in the offing.

"But the Rajah, or rather his servants, had filled us up with a kind of
sticky drink that only begins to work when you think it about time to
leave off. I must have pulled miles towards that ship, and every time I
cast an eye over my shoulder her light was shining just as far away as
ever. At last I remember feeling sure I was bewitched, and with that I
must have tumbled off the thwart in a sound sleep.

"When I awoke I had both arms round the bombardon; there wasn't a sight
of land, or of the ship, anywhere; and, if you please, the sun was near
sinking! This time I managed to wake up O'Hara. We had splitting
headaches, the pair of us; but we snatched up our instruments and
started to blow on them like mad. Not a soul heard, though we blew till
the sweat poured down us, and kept up the concert pretty well all
through the night. You may think it funny, and I suppose we did amount
to something like a joke--we two bandsmen booming away at the Popular
Airs of Old England and the Huntsmen's Chorus under those everlasting
stars. You wouldn't say so, if you had been the audience when O'Hara
broke down and began to confess his sins.

"Luckily the sea kept smooth, and next morning I took the oars in
earnest. We had no compass, and I was famished; but I stuck to it,
steering by the sun and pulling in the direction where I supposed land
to lie. O'Hara kept a look-out. We saw nothing, however, and down came
the night again.

"Though the hunger had been gnawing and griping me for hours, yet--
dog-tired as I was--I curled myself at the bottom of the boat and slept,
and dreamed I was on board ship again and in my hammock. A sort of
booming in my ears awoke me. Looking up I saw daylight around--clear
morning light and blue sky--and right overhead, as it were, a great
cliff standing against the blue. And there in the face of day O'H