e reached the middle, and hurried so as to
get to the next tree to rest.

The third stage was easier still, and he crept on in this way from tree
to tree, six, eight, and ten feet at a time, till, to his great delight,
he found the water waist instead of breast-high. Ten minutes later it
was not more than half-way up this height, and in another five he left
the rafter still pressed against two trunks, and waded through the
rushing stream, holding on by bough after bough, till he stood
triumphantly upon dry land. Then after walking a few yards to an open
patch by a pit where the sun shone warmly, he dropped upon his knees in
hot, loose, yellow sand, and crouched there till his breath came
regularly and he could look more calmly round.

The place was in the wood, shut in by a few trees and great patches of
golden-blossomed furze. The sun came down warmly, birds twittered in
the boughs, and a couple of rabbits showed their white cottony tails for
a moment or two as they plunged down into their burrows, while above
all, in a low, deep, roaring bass, there was the heavy thunder of the
river as it swept sand, gravel, trees, and everything it could tear from
its flooded banks, toward the sea.

Richard Frayne felt that he must be miles away from Primchilsea, and
that he was in as lonely a country place as he could have selected; and
now for the first time the discomforts of his personal condition began
to make themselves felt, as there was no more serious call upon his
brain.

His hat had gone when he first plunged into the river, but he did not
seem to have lost anything else, for his jacket was buttoned tightly
over the little case; but the hot sunshine now, paradoxical as it may
sound, began to make him feel chilly--of course, from the great
evaporation going on.

Taking off his garments, then, one by one, he wrung and spread them on
the hot sand, emptying his boots and serving them the same, when, after
wringing out his socks and placing them to dry, a good idea occurred to
him, and he filled his boots with the hottest, dryest sand he could
find.

His next course was to roll in the same, which felt grateful indeed to
his benumbed and chilled limbs, the skin being blue with the cold; and
the next minute he was lying down in a sunny hollow and dragging the
sand over him till he was covered to the neck, a little loosening of the
dry fluent stuff making it trickle down over his free arm. There he
was, luxuriating in