ting off the road. These posts became sneering, laughing
men, wearing cloaks flung across their breasts, Italian fashion. They
were insolent, and he challenged them to fight; but they only ridiculed
him.

"You are the fellows that have been bothering me all night," he shouted,
and dropping on one knee, he took a sheath knife from the tender and
plunged it into the breast of one of the men. In a flash of reason he
saw the knife quivering in a post.

Again the fevered voyager started, the paddle all the while telling him
that he would soon strike some town or village. Two or three times the
overwhelming desire for water compelled him to return to the river and
drink. Every time he descended or climbed the dyke he grew weaker and
finally decided to lie down at all hazards and sleep. The paddle
earnestly remonstrated:

"It is death. Death if you lie down. Keep on," it said.

Fatigue obtained the mastery and he sank on the ground determined to
sleep. Scarcely had he stretched his limbs on the muddy dyke, than he
was partially aroused by the "dong, dong, dong," of a great bell
clanging on the still night air. He counted twelve strokes.

"Ah, that is another illusion," he thought; but it brought him to a
sitting posture, just as a bell of different tone sounded "ding,
ding, ding," and again he counted twelve strokes.

The second sound convinced him that he was near a village, and heeding
the commands of the paddle, he struggled to his feet and entered a road
which he followed, passing under an old arch that spanned the highway,
but he was afraid to touch it, thinking that it too, would disappear.
Shortly the cobble stones of a street were felt through the rubber soles
of his dress. He saw houses on each side, but kept on under the
impression that if he approached them they would vanish, and he also
conceived the idea that he must tread lightly or he would scare them
away. As he advanced through the village street, arguing with the paddle
that no real village was in sight, a light shining through a transom
over the door of some outbuilding, attracted his attention, and he
thought he might be in the vicinity of human beings. Hearing the sound
of voices he approached the door, listening. Then another mad thought
came to him, that he must make a desperate rush at the door and get
inside before it melted away. He did so, and the frail barrier gave way
before the pressure of his shoulder and he stum