“While I sat keeping guard on him I must have dropped asleep myself; for the next I remember was waking up to find the beach deserted and the boat gone.  This put me in a sweat, of course; but after groping some while about the foreshore (which was as dark as the inside of your hat), I tripped over a rope and so found a native boat.  O’Hara wouldn’t wake, so I just lifted him on board like a sack, tossed in his cornet and my bombardon, tumbled in on top of them, and started to row for dear life towards the ship’s light in the offing.

“But the Rajah, or rather his servants, had filled us up with a kind of sticky drink that only begins to work when you think it about time to leave off.  I must have pulled miles towards that ship, and every time I cast an eye over my shoulder her light was shining just as far away as ever.  At last I remember feeling sure I was bewitched, and with that I must have tumbled off the thwart in a sound sleep.

“When I awoke I had both arms round the bombardon; there wasn’t a sight of land, or of the ship, anywhere; and, if you please, the sun was near sinking!  This time I managed to wake up O’Hara.  We had splitting headaches, the pair of us; but we snatched up our instruments and started to blow on them like mad.  Not a soul heard, though we blew till the sweat poured down us, and kept up the concert pretty well all through the night.  You may think it funny, and I suppose we did amount to something like a joke—­we two bandsmen booming away at the Popular Airs of Old England and the Huntsmen’s Chorus under those everlasting stars.  You wouldn’t say so, if you had been the audience when O’Hara broke down and began to confess his sins.

“Luckily the sea kept smooth, and next morning I took the oars in earnest.  We had no compass, and I was famished; but I stuck to it, steering by the sun and pulling in the direction where I supposed land to lie.  O’Hara kept a look-out.  We saw nothing, however, and down came the night again.

“Though the hunger had been gnawing and griping me for hours, yet—­ dog-tired as I was—­I curled myself at the bottom of the boat and slept, and dreamed I was on board ship again and in my hammock.  A sort of booming in my ears awoke me.  Looking up I saw daylight around—­clear morning light and blue sky—­and right overhead, as it were, a great cliff standing against the blue.  And there in the face of day O’Hara sat on the thwart, tugging like mad, now cricking his neck almost to stare up at the cliff, and now grinning down at me in silly triumph.

“With that I caught at the meaning of the sound in my ears.  ‘You infernal fool!’ I shouted, staggering up and making to snatch the paddle from him.  ‘Get her nose round to it and back her!’ For it was the noise of breaking water.