Page:O'Higgins--The Adventures of Detective Barney.djvu/129

 and bring down his head, which still floated. When another arm caught him across his chest, he hung on it weakly and let the world blow by, happily anchored in a surge that rose and fell with him, his eyes on a shore light that burned steadily on the horizon.

He had struck against a pole gate, and the lightning revealed a clearing in the woods and a house beyond it. He hung there a long time, watching it come and go in flashes, and he had not the slightest idea why it disappeared, any more than if the whole thing were a night-mare. First there would be the darkness with the small ray of yellow light in it; then the open field and the house, as distinct as daylight; then the darkness again—over and over, in a dizzy, drunken sort of blinking iteration. He felt seasick.

It occurred to him that he might crawl through the gate and sneak up and grab a pillar of the veranda when it rose to show itself, and clamber aboard it. If he made no