This may be the rule, but it is said that there is no rule without an exception. Fitz Burnett's slumber in his hot, stuffy berth was one of these exceptions, and rather a remarkable one too, for almost directly after dropping off he began to dream in the most outrageous manner, that proving for him a sort of Arabian Night which had somehow been blown across on the equatorial winds to Central America. The whole of his dream was vivid in the extreme while it was in progress, and if it could have been transcribed then, no doubt it would have proved to be of the most intense interest; but unfortunately it had to be recalled the next morning when its clearness was muddled, the sharpness of its features blurred. Two or three times over he tried to dismiss it from his mind altogether, for it worried him; but it absolutely refused to be got rid of, and kept coming back with the utmost persistency, making him feel bound to drag it back and try to set it in order, though this proved very difficult. It was some time before he could get hold of the thread at all, and at the first pull he found that he drew up several threads, tangled and knotted up in the most inextricable confusion, while they were all in some way connected with Chips the carpenter's plans. He did not want the task: it bothered him, for in the broad sunshine of the morning Chips's notions seemed to him to be ludicrously absurd; but somehow he felt bound to go on disentangling them, because he was, as it were, in some way mixed up with them, and had been during the night helping him to carry them out. "Makes my head feel quite hot," he said to himself, as he leaned over the bulwark looking down at the water hurrying past the schooner. "I haven't got a fever coming on, have I? If it doesn't all soon go off I'll ask Captain Reed to give me some of his quinine. Ugh! Horribly bitter stuff! I have had enough physic this voyage to last me for a year."