d see that rope. If he could pull it once,
it was absolutely and mathematically certain that the disordered fleet
would reassemble itself in the backwater behind the guard-tower. But
why, he wondered, was Peroo clinging so desperately to his waist as he
hastened down the bank? It was necessary to put the lascar aside,
gently and slowly, because it was necessary to save the boats, and,
further, to demonstrate the extreme ease of the problem that looked so
difficult. And then--but it was of no conceivable importance--a wire
rope raced through his hand burning it, the high bank disappeared, and
with it all the slowly dispersing factors of the problem. He was
sitting in the rainy darkness--sitting in a boat that spun like a top,
and Peroo was standing over him.

"I had forgotten," said the lascar slowly, "that to those fasting and
unused the opium is worse than any wine. Those who die in Gunga go to
the Gods. Still, I have no desire to present myself before such great
ones. Can the Sahib swim?"

"What need? He can fly--fly as swiftly as the wind," was the thick
answer.

"He is mad!" muttered Peroo under his breath. "And he threw me aside
like a bundle of dung-cakes. Well, he will not know his death. The
boat cannot live an hour here even if she strike nothing. It is not
good to look at death with a clear eye."

He refreshed himself again from the tin box, squatted down in the bows
of the reeling, pegged, and stitched craft staring through the mist at
the nothing that was there. A warm drowsiness crept over Findlayson,
the Chief Engineer, whose duty was with his bridge. The heavy
raindrops struck him with a thousand tingling little thrills, and the
weight of all time since time was made hung heavy on his eyelids. He
thought and perceived that he was perfectly secure, for the water was
so solid that a man could surely step out upon it, and standing still
with his legs apart to keep his balance--this was the most important
point--would be borne with great and easy speed to the shore. But yet
a better plan came to him. It needed only an exertion of will for the
soul to hurl the body ashore as wind drives paper; to waft it
kite-fashion to the bank. Thereafter--the boat spun dizzily--suppose
the high wind got under the freed body? Would it tower up like a kite
and pitch headlong on the far-away sands, or would it duck about
beyond control through all eternity? Findlayson gripped the gunnel to
anchor himself, for it seemed th