"Massa, no fear of dat--none at all; de moon clear and hard as one bone; and de star, dem twinkle sharp and bright as one piece broken glass when de sun shine on him. No, no, all dry, dry--no rain before morning. Rain! dere shan't be no rain for one mont." "But I am not inclined to take your word for this, my lad; so"---- "Bery well, massa; bery good--massa know betterest; so, since massa want howl for bedfellow, Jinker can't help it--only massa had better put someting over him face to cover him nose, or him yeye--basin will do--oh, howl love piece of de nose of one nyung buccra bery mosh." Come, thought I, sleeping with a basin on one's face is too absurd after all; but better even that than be drowned--"So, friend Jinker,"--I was now resolved--"since _that_ is your name, _stop_ the hole you _shall not_; therefore, jink out of the room, will ye, for I am very drowsy." I fell asleep, but the notion of this said conduit leading through my room haunted me. At one moment I dreamed I heard the rain beating on the roof of the house, and against the blinds; and the next the rushing, and rippling, and gurgling of the water along the hollow wooden pipe; then I was wafted by the _sound_--there's a poetical image for you--to the falls of Niagara, and was standing in the cave of Eolus, with the strong damp gusts of cold wind eddying and whirling around me, as if it would have lifted me off my feet on the wings of my shirt--for mind I had no other garment on--below the Great Horseshoe fall, with the screen of living waters falling, green and foam-streaked, like a sheet of flowing-glass, past my eyes, down down, down--and boiling away into the Devil's Pot under foot. Anon the sparkling veil of water was bent towards me, until it touched the tip of my nose, and I turned to escape; but the basin on my face prevented my seeing. But this again soon became transparent, as if the coarse delf had been metamorphosed into clear crystal, and down thundered the cascade again--for it had ceased for a moment, you must know--sprinkled this time with draggle-winged owls, as thick as Bonaparte's coronation robe with bees. I was choked, suffocated, and all the rest of it. "Murder! Murder!--I am drowned--I am drowned--for ever and entirely drowned!" and in an agony of fear I struggled to escape, but in vain--in vain-- "The waters gather'd o'er me!" when enter friend Jinker--"Massa, massa, who hurt you? Who kill you? Who _ravage_ you?" Bash; something wet, and cold, and feathery flew against my face--"Oh, gemini, what is this next! Lights--lights--lights--my kingdom for a farthing-candle!" "Will massa only be pleased to sit down on de bed and be quiet one moment?" said my sable friend.