lls as they arched overhead, to alight
with a drum-boom and burst with a cymbal crash; the whole orchestra of
battle was playing--it seemed that everyone must recognise the
air--"The Ride of the Valkyrie;" and now the driving rain and the salt
spindrift, the flapping of the leech of our brown sail, every note of
accompaniment is being given to that great air that runs through
Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata, which the wind is singing louder and
louder. Tim sits up well to windward, the tiller quivering in his
hand, the rain beating on one side of his face, his beard blowing out
from the other. Tim doesn't think what a good model for a Viking he
makes just now. The real actual Viking must have been very little
different in appearance from Tim.

We were not long in making that last half-mile, and dropped anchor
close inshore. At once on doing so the many advantages of the canvas
cabin were apparent. The boat, riding head to wind, made the bow under
the canvas quite snug. Mike blew the bellows on the smouldering sods
of turf which had never quite gone out; it is true the eddying smoke
resulting therefrom was smarting to the eyes, but the resulting hot
tea was compensation. It was useless for me to try to explain that it
would be a real pleasure for me to sleep outside in my waterproof--that
it would make me dream of being outside Santiago in the trenches, or
on the veldt. It was only a matter of which of the three--who all
wanted to--should give up his berth on the straw. Dennis succeeded
eventually. It was a bad night. It was snug and "comfy" inside on the
straw as the boat cradled on the broken aftermath of swell. The rain
played in sheets of notes on the flapping canvas, and from its edge
wraiths of smoke shuddered off into the darkness; and, dropping off to
sleep, I listened to the Storm moaning the air of the Waldstein to the
ear of Beethoven.

THE END

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.

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