Then I became conscious of a soft
and regular "swish," rising and falling constantly and perpetually, and I
remembered the sea close at hand, and a shiver of gratitude ran through
me to think how narrowly I had escaped having that heaving surface
fathoms over my head.
I have often wished since that I had lain there for a little while and
tried to remember the dream, and whether I had actually gone to sleep
with my oilskin buttoned, while the circumstances, such as they were,
were fresh in my memory. When I thought of them afterwards I could swear
to nothing and finally concluded the whole thing was probably fancy.
But if by any chance it were not, then evidently _some one_ had tried to
search me in the night, and who would it be likely to be but my vanished
acquaintance on the shore, or his confederates? And in that case one of
them must have been lurking very close at hand. However, when I tried to
piece my recollections together afterwards it was too late to make
anything of them at all.
I only know for certain that I missed nothing from my pockets, and that
as a matter of fact I had actually carried nothing in them that would
have given me away--so far at least as I could judge.
These, as I say, were my subsequent reflections. What I did at the time
was not to think about the matter any further, but jump up, open the barn
door and walk out into the sunshine.
Pages:
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36