We looked round. A steam-tug was towing our ship out toward banks of
red-reflecting cloud, and a smell of sea air.

'Why, that's the East there!' cried Temple. We faced about to the sun,
and behold, he was actually sinking!

'Nonsense!' we exclaimed in a breath. From seaward to this stupefying
sunset we stood staring. The river stretched to broad lengths; gulls
were on the grey water, knots of seaweed, and the sea-foam curled in
advance of us.

'By jingo!' Temple spoke out, musing, 'here's a whole day struck out of
our existence.'

'It can't be!' said I, for that any sensible being could be tricked of a
piece of his life in that manner I thought a preposterous notion.

But the sight of a lessening windmill in the West, shadows eastward, the
wide water, and the air now full salt, convinced me we two had slept
through an entire day, and were passing rapidly out of hail of our native
land.

'We must get these fellows to put us on shore at once,' said Temple: 'we
won't stop to eat. There's a town; a boat will row us there in half-an-
hour. Then we can wash, too. I've got an idea nothing's clean here.
And confound these fellows for not having the civility to tell us they
were going to start!'

We were rather angry, a little amused, not in the least alarmed at our
position. A sailor, to whom we applied for an introduction to the