rightened by the sound of a
human voice.

"I don't know," he said, speaking with a great effort. "Hours, Chutney,
hours. A day and a night must have passed since I cracked that fellow
there on the head. I hoped you would never wake. This is like dying a
thousand times over. It won't last long now. A few hours at the
most--and then--"

"But tell me," interrupted Guy, "the rest, are they--are they----"

"Dead?" said Melton. "No, I think not. Very near the end, though. They
can't move. They can't even reach the edge of the raft to drink. Water
has kept me up a little."

Crawling inch by inch, he drew himself beside Guy and propped his back
against the canoe. They sat side by side, too exhausted to speak,
mercifully indifferent to their fate.

It is doubtful if they realized their position. The last stages of
starvation had blunted their sensibilities, thrown a veil over their
reasoning faculties.

Presently Guy observed that the raft had entered upon a most turbulent
stretch of water. At frequent intervals he heard dimly the hoarse roar
of rapids and felt the logs quiver and tremble as they struck the rocks.
The shores appeared almost close enough to touch as they whirled past
with a speed that made him close his eyes with dizziness, and the jagged
roof seemed about to fall and crush him.

He saw these things as a man sees in a dream. He could no longer reason
over them or draw conclusions from the facts. The increasing roar of the
water, the cumulative force of the current, told him dimly that a crisis
was approaching.

So they drifted on, lost to all passage of time. Presently the last
embers of the fire expired with a hiss as a dash of spray was flung on
them, and all was dark.

Guy whispered Melton's name, but a feeble groan was the only response.
He reached out a trembling arm and found that his friend had slipped
down from the canoe and was lying prostrate on the rugs. He alone
retained consciousness, such as it was.

Bildad was jabbering in delirium, and Guy could catch broken sentences
muttered at intervals by Carrington or the Greek.

He felt that his own reason was fast going, and he conceived a sudden
horror of dying in darkness.

A torch was lying under his hand and he had matches.

The effort of striking the light was a prodigious one, but at last he
succeeded and the torch flared up brightly over the raft and its
occupants.

The sudden transition from darkness to light had a startling effec