y
I parted this with my hands, and there, in front, lay a rippling sheet
of water, fully as wide as the river I had just crossed. With a thump
my heart went down into my boots, and the little devil of despair
whispered that I must be near the mouth of the river, on an island, a
prisoner of my own making. (In truth, this was very nearly the case,
for, as I feared, I was very far north, this accounting for the volume
and width of the river.) This stretch of water was totally unexpected.
Had I been fresh and known my whereabouts, it would have formed a
formidable enough obstacle; as it was, I had already done more than my
share of bathing for that night, and knew that I was in a totally
unfit condition to attempt another long-distance swim.

Obviously the first thing to be done was to make certain that I was
indeed on an island, so I proceeded to take stock of my surroundings.
I noticed that, except for the rough patches on the water which caught
the wind, the surface was comparatively smooth, and there was no sign
of a current. Walking a few yards to the right, I saw that the line of
the old river and this strip of unknown water converged, leaving
little hope in that direction. I therefore turned about, and started
off to my left front. Evidence that the cereal crop had been carted
quite recently was plentiful, for there was short, fresh stubble, cart
tracks, and the impression of horses' hoofs. This pointed to the
encouraging fact that I was not on an island, horses and carts not
usually being transported by barge or aeroplane. I had not followed
the tracks for more than fifty yards when they turned straight towards
the water. The next minute I barely stifled a yell of delight, for
there, staring me in the face, was a sort of pontoon bridge,
stretching away into the darkness. On closer inspection, I found it to
be composed of bundles of brushwood which were held together in some
mysterious manner, and appeared to lie on the water. The surface of
the bridge was in very bad repair and, as some of the top bundles of
sticks were missing or pointing upwards at an angle, progress was very
slow; but, sometimes walking, sometimes crawling, I got along at quite
a good pace. Once it seemed that I should have to swim a short
distance, but I found it to be unnecessary, as only the top layer of
the bundles was missing. Nearing the other side, I made out a factory
building of some sort, with a high chimney, a little way from the end