myself up to the
point of the direct question. It was like agreeing to allow the dentist
to extract the tooth; it _had_ to come anyhow in the long run, and the
rest was all pretense.

"Further disaster! Why, what's happened?"

"For one thing--the steering paddle's gone," he said quietly.

"The steering paddle gone!" I repeated, greatly excited, for this was
our rudder, and the Danube in flood without a rudder was suicide. "But
what----"

"And there's a tear in the bottom of the canoe," he added, with a
genuine little tremor in his voice.

I continued staring at him, able only to repeat the words in his face
somewhat foolishly. There, in the heat of the sun, and on this burning
sand, I was aware of a freezing atmosphere descending round us. I got up
to follow him, for he merely nodded his head gravely and led the way
towards the tent a few yards on the other side of the fireplace. The
canoe still lay there as I had last seen her in the night, ribs
uppermost, the paddles, or rather, _the_ paddle, on the sand beside her.

"There's only one," he said, stooping to pick it up. "And here's the
rent in the base-board."

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that I had clearly noticed
_two_ paddles a few hours before, but a second impulse made me think
better of it, and I said nothing. I approached to see.

There was a long, finely made tear in the bottom of the canoe where a
little slither of wood had been neatly taken clean out; it looked as if
the tooth of a sharp rock or snag had eaten down her length, and
investigation showed that the hole went through. Had we launched out in
her without observing it we must inevitably have foundered. At first the
water would have made the wood swell so as to close the hole, but once
out in midstream the water must have poured in, and the canoe, never
more than two inches above the surface, would have filled and sunk very
rapidly.

"There, you see, an attempt to prepare a victim for the sacrifice," I
heard him saying, more to himself than to me, "two victims rather," he
added as he bent over and ran his fingers along the slit.

I began to whistle--a thing I always do unconsciously when utterly
nonplused--and purposely paid no attention to his words. I was
determined to consider them foolish.

"It wasn't there last night," he said presently, straightening up from
his examination and looking anywhere but at me.

"We must have scratched her in landing, of course," I stopped