2 - I Seek Shelter and Find It - Page 2

through the leaves of the trees, or an
undiscovered crack in the rocks above me, sent me travelling upon my
way. Physical endurance has its limits, however, and at the end of a
two hours' climb, wellnigh exhausted, I staggered into an opening
between two walls of rock, and fell almost fainting to the ground.
The falling rain revived me, and on my hands and knees I crawled
farther in, and, to my great delight, shortly found myself in a
high-ceiled cavern, safe from the storm, a place in which one might
starve comfortably, if so be one had to pass through that trying
ordeal.

"He might have left me my flask," I groaned as I thought over the pint
of warming liquid which Hippopopolis had taken from me. It was of a
particular sort, and I liked it whether I was thirsty or not. "If he'd
only left me that, he might have had my letter of credit, and no
questions asked. These Greeks are apparently not aware that there is
consideration even among thieves."

Huddling myself together, I tried to get warm after the fashion of the
small boy when he jumps into his cold-sheeted bed on a winter's night,
a process which makes his legs warm the upper part of his body, and
_vice versa_. It was moderately successful. If I could have wrung the
water out of my clothes, it might have been wholly so. Still, matters
began to look more cheerful, and I was about to drop off into a doze,
when at the far end of the cavern, where all had hitherto been black
as night, there suddenly burst forth a tremendous flood of light.

"Humph!" thought I, as the rays pierced through the blackness of the
cavern even to where I lay shivering. "I'm in for it now. In all
probability I have stumbled upon a bandits' cave."

Pleasing visions of the ways of bandits began to flit through my mind.

"In all likelihood," thought I, "there are seventeen of them. As I
have read my fiction, there are invariably seventeen bandits to a
band. It's like sixteen ounces to the pound, or three feet to the
yard, or fifty-three cents to the dollar. It never varies. What hope
have I to escape unharmed from seventeen bandits, even though five of
them are discontented--as is always the case in books--and are ready
to betray their chief to the enemy? I am the enemy, of course, but
I'll be hanged if I wish the chief betrayed into my hands. He could
probably thrash me single-handed. My hands are full anyhow, whether I
get the chief or not."

[Illustration: A DREAM OF BRIGANDAGE]

My heart sank into my boots; but as these were very wet, it promptly
returned to my throat, where it had rested ever since Hippopopolis had
deserted me. My heart is a very sane sort of an organ. I gazed towards