Chapter 65

“Laddie,” he remarked, “hast ever listened to a vast herd of elephants crashing their way through primeval forest? Hast ever heard the scaly rhinoceros and young gambolling playfully on a shingly shore, whilst they assuage their thirst? Thus and more so was your progress that night. Like a tank with open exhaust you came into action: like a battalion of panting men you lay about, in the most obvious places you could find, and breathed hard. You were, and I say it advisedly, the most conspicuous object in the whole …