BEGGARS ON HORSEBACK. 115 



and then at us. We accepted the hint, and re- 

 tired to the cabin allotted to us. 



It was about seven feet square, and contained 

 a bedstead that covered all the room save a strip 

 of two • feet, on which stood a doll's chest of 

 drawers with a small jug and basin on it. In 

 the face of the fact that there was but one other 

 bedroom, it was idle to speculate as to how the 

 forty visitors of the night before had disposed 

 themselves ; but a very cursory investigation of 

 the sheets forced us to the conclusion that many 

 of them had gone to bed in their boots. Possibly 

 they were right. Top-boots and an entire suit 

 of oil-skins would alone have brought those sheets 

 within the sphere of practical politics. We wrapped 

 ourselves in the blankets, and lay down, fully clad, 

 to wait for the dawn. 



Never before that night had I known how much 

 more miserable one may be made by sleep than 

 by the want of it. The thin doses forced on us 

 by fatigue had the property of magnifying-glasses, 

 and turned a vague insufficiency of pillow into a 



