from post to post until I came to the end of the structure, and then feeling my way round it in grim darkness, found myself at last with my feet embedded in soft mud. I held on there for a minute or two to take breath, and then fought on again. In a little while I found myself on dry land, but so used up by the pull and by the unwonted exertion that I fell all in a heap at the water's edge, and lay there so prostrated that I could move neither hand nor foot. At first the air was tenfold colder than the water had been, but the natural heat reasserted itself gradually, and my forces so far gathered themselves together that I could stand upon my feet and walk. I went on blindly just at first, with such lights as were visible dancing wildly all about me, and it must only have been by sheer good fortune that I did not wander back into the river from which I had so narrowly escaped. Sometimes I saw hundreds of lights, green and red and dazzling white, which had no existence at all, but in the midst of these I made out one which was stationary and real, and I went towards it. When I reached it I found that it hung above the door of that identical public-house at which we had found our boatman, and there at the doorway, glass in hand, was the hackney driver who had brought us down. The man looked amazed to see me, and was more surprised still when I hailed him. He undertook immediately to drive me back to town; helped me into the cab, wrapped me up from head to foot in a rough oilcloth, got me a stiff glass of hot brandy-and-water, and drove away.