hile, upon looking aft, the man at the
helm was crouched up all of a heap sleeping heavily.

"It is very beautiful," said the professor; "but I daresay some of our
English sunsets are nearly as bright, only we do not notice them, being
either shut up or too busy to look."

"Doesn't this curious stuffy feeling of heat make you feel drowsy, Mr
Preston?" said Lawrence, after a few minutes' silence, "or do I feel it
because I am weak with being ill so long?"

"My dear boy," replied the professor laughing, "at the present moment I
feel as if all my bones had been dissolved into so much gristle. It is
the heat, my lad, the heat."

Lawrence lay back upon the deck with his head resting upon a pillow
formed out of a doubled-up coat. He had tried going below, but the
little cabin was suffocating. It was as if the bulkheads and deck had
imbibed the sun's heat all day and were now slowly giving it out. To
sleep there would have been impossible, and he had returned on deck
bathed in perspiration to try and get a breath of air.

As he lay there he could see the old lawyer sleeping heavily, the
professor with his head resting upon his hand, and his face glorified by
the reflection from sea and sky, and their guide Yussuf seated
cross-legged smoking placidly at his water-pipe, his dark eyes seeming
to glow like hot coals.

Beyond him lay the Greek and his men upon their faces, motionless as the
man at the helm, and then all at once the muttering bubbling noise made
by Yussuf's pipe seemed to be coming from the old lawyer's parted lips,
and the pipe, instead of justifying its name of "hubble-bubble," kept on
saying _snorruk_--_snorruk_, after the fashion of Mr Burne. Finally,
there was nothing--nothing at all but sleep, deep, heavy, satisfying
sleep that might have lasted one hour, two hours, any length of time.
It seemed as if there was no dreaming, till all at once Lawrence
imagined that the professor was bitterly angry with him for getting
better that he jumped up and kicked him violently, and that then, as he
tried to rise, he stamped upon him, and the stamp made a loud report.
He was awake.

Awake, but in a dazed, puzzled state, for all was pitchy dark, and as he
jumped up he was knocked down again, and would have gone over the side
had he not struck against and clung to one of the ropes which supported
the mast.

About him a terrible struggle was going on; there was heavy, hoarse
breathing; men were trampling here a