degrees steadier, and the canoe shot swiftly over the
water. His hopes rose; he sat up and kept a keener look-out ahead. All
at once the canoe shook as if she had struck a rock. She vibrated from
one end to the other, and stopped for a moment in her course. Felix
sprang up alarmed. At the same instant a bellowing noise reached him,
succeeded by a frightful belching and roaring, as if a volcano had burst
forth under the surface of the water; he looked back but could see
nothing. The canoe had not touched ground; she sailed as rapidly as
before.

Again the shock, and again the hideous roaring, as if some force beneath
the water were forcing itself up, vast bubbles rising and turning.
Fortunately it was at a great distance. Hardly was it silent before it
was reiterated for the third time. Next Felix felt the canoe heave up,
and he was aware that a large roller had passed under him. A second and
a third followed. They were without crests, and were not raised by the
wind; they obviously started from the scene of the disturbance. Soon
afterwards the canoe moved quicker, and he detected a strong current
setting in the direction he was sailing.

The noise did not recur, nor did any more rollers pass under. Felix felt
better and less dazed, but his weariness and sleepiness increased every
moment. He fancied that the serpent flames were less brilliant and
farther apart, and that the luminous vapour was thinner. How long he sat
at the rudder he could not tell; he noticed that it seemed to grow
darker, the serpent flames faded away, and the luminous vapour was
succeeded by something like the natural gloom of night. At last he saw a
star overhead, and hailed it with joy. He thought of Aurora; the next
instant he fell back in the canoe firm asleep.

His arm, however, still retained the rudder-paddle in position, so that
the canoe sped on with equal swiftness. She would have struck more than
one of the sandbanks and islets had it not been for the strong current
that was running. Instead of carrying her against the banks this warded
her off, for it drew her between the islets in the channels where it ran
fastest, and the undertow, where it struck the shore, bore her back from
the land. Driving before the wind, the canoe swept onward steadily to
the west. In an hour it had passed the line of the black water, and
entered the sweet Lake. Another hour and all trace of the marshes had
utterly disappeared, the last faint glow of the vapou