“‘I am overboard, and drowning,’ I shrieked in reply.
“Upon this instead of lowering a rope, he extended me his hands, and helped me up—out of the cabin!
“The crash I had heard was the cabin hatchway, and I had fallen through it into the room below, and into about two feet of water! The iron ring was a hammock ring. No wonder I did not see the lightning flashes down in that hole.
“The raging waves, and the tossing about in the wind, and the vessel scudding away from me had only existed in my imagination. I was so certain that I had fallen into the river that I imagined the rest.
“The tempest soon ceased, but not the laugh at me. That lasted all the way to Para. Somehow my adventure seemed more ridiculous to the Captain and the sailors than it did to me!
STILL WATERS.
“We had lovely weather during the remainder of our trip. Our Bella Donna behaved very well except that she would get on a sand-bar occasionally. This was partly the pilot’s fault, and partly the fault of the river in having so many sand-bars.
‘Did not the Captain try to get his sloop off the sand-bars?’ George inquired.
“Yes, the sailors would try to work the vessel off, sometimes getting into the water, and working like Trojans. But they never did get her off; and we would just stick there until the next tide which invariably floated us on our way.