perceptible to strained eyes. I was
thoroughly seasick, retching and vomiting over the narrow freeboard.
Steadily and rhythmically the man rowed with tireless arms, apparently
unaffected by the boat's leaping and dropping in response to the impulse
of the waves and in my intervals of relief from nausea I reflected that
he must have gained plenty of practice, that he was an old hand in
making this trip. It was a peculiar way to gain wealth, I thought,
caught in another spasm of sickness, enriching oneself on the misery of
others.

I vomited and dozed, dozed and vomited. The night was endless, the wind
was bitter. What riches, I wondered, could compensate a man for such
hardships? By the time the wanderers got to the Channel they could not
very well have much left and unless my smuggler were gifted with
secondsight he could not know, judging by the way he had accosted me,
whether he was carrying a man who could pay L10, L100 or L500 for the
accommodation. Well, I philosophized, it takes all kinds to make a
world, and who am I to say this illicit trafficker isnt doing as much
good in his way as I in mine?

I don't know when my nausea finally left me, unless it was after nothing
whatever remained in my stomach. I sat limp and cold, conscious only of
the erratic bobbing of the little vessel and the ceaseless rhythm of the
oars. At last, unbelievably, the sky turned from black to gray. I could
not believe it anything but an optical illusion in the endless night and
I strained to dissipate whatever biliousness was affecting my vision.
But it was dawn, sure enough, and soon it revealed the pettish,
wallowing Channel and the fragile outline of our boat, even tinier than
I had conceived. I shuddered with more than cold--had I known what a
cockleshell it was I might have paused before trusting my life so
readily to it.

Line by line the increasing light drew the countenance of my guide. At
first he was nothing but a shape, well muffled, with some kind of flat
cap upon his head. A little more light revealed a glittering eye, more,
a great, hooked nose with wide nostrils. He was a man of uncertain age,
bordering upon the elderly, with a black skullcap under which curled
outward two silverygray horns of hair. The lower part of his face was
covered with a grizzled beard.

He must have been studying me as intently, for he now broke the silence
which had prevailed all night. "You are not a poor man," he announced
accusingly. "How