Page:Barbour--Joan of the ilsand.djvu/35

Rh buried in obscurity the better it would suit him. His needs, for the present, were few, and at any rate he would have no difficulty in making himself sufficiently useful about the place to balance the cost of his keep. But apart from his own convenience in being precipitated into this elysium, he reflected, as he buried his head deep into a pillow softer than any that ever touched his head on the Four Winds, it occurred to him that he was peculiarly fortunate in having arrived there, for Joan Trent's sake. Yes, and also for his own sake because Joan Trent was there. Musing over this fact contentedly, and without a thought for the morrow—the morrow of months hence when Tao Tao would remain but a pleasant dream for him, to be recalled through the long watches of the night on some steamer's bridge in far-off seas—he drifted off to sleep.

But his sleep was not dreamless. The last forty-eight hours had been crowded with too much adventure for placid slumber. He was back on the Four Winds, where everything was topsy-turvy. The ship would persist in going backward though the engines were driving her full ahead; and the man at the helm was a deaf mute. But he must keep on swimming at all costs, though the water got into his mouth and was choking him. Drifting seaweed had become entangled round his throat, tighter and tighter. He could hardly breathe …