x just under the deck, so that even if it were to get filled with
water not a drop could enter the canoe itself. But the plank-lid was so
beautifully fitted, besides shutting tightly down on indiarubber, that
the chance of leakage through that source was very remote. Although very
narrow, this box was deep, and contained a variety of useful implements;
among them a slender mast and tiny sail, which could be rendered still
smaller by means of reef points. All these things were fitted into their
respective places with so keen an eye to economy of space that the
arrangement cannot be better described than by the familiar
phrase--_multum, in parvo._

"We don't use the sails much; we depend chiefly on this," said the
hermit, as he seated himself in the front hole and laid the long, heavy,
double-bladed paddle on the saddle in front of him. Moses uses a single
blade, partly because it is handier for steering and partly because he
has been accustomed to it in his own land. You are at liberty to use
which you prefer."

"Thanks, I will follow the lead of Moses, for I also have been
accustomed to the single blade and prefer it--at least while I am one of
three. If alone, I should prefer the double blade."

"Now, Moses, are you ready?" asked the hermit.

"All ready, massa."

"Get in then and shove off. Come along, Spinkie."

The monkey, which all this time had been seated on a rock looking on
with an expression of inconsolable sorrow, at once accepted the
invitation, and with a lively bound alighted on the deck close to the
little mast, which had been set up just in front of Nigel, and to which
it held on when the motions of the canoe became unsteady.

"You need not give yourself any concern about Spinkie," said the hermit,
as they glided over the still water of the little cove in which the
canoe and boat were harboured. "He is quite able to take care of
himself."

Bounding the entrance to the cove and shooting out into the ocean under
the influence of Van der Kemp's powerful strokes, they were soon clear
of the land, and proceeded eastward at a rate which seemed unaccountable
to our hero, for he had not sufficiently realised the fact that in
addition to the unusual physical strength of Van der Kemp as well as
that of Moses, to say nothing of his own, the beautiful fish-like
adaptation of the canoe to the water, the great length and leverage of
the bow paddle, and the weight of themselves as well as the cargo, gave
this