29/37 She bent down and called in my ear: "All is well. The heat begins, but it will not endure for long." I nodded and glanced over the edge of the stone at Bastin's lantern which was sailing alongside of us, till presently we passed it. Bastin had lit it before we started, I think in a moment of aberration, and it burned for quite a long while, showing like a star when the shaft grew darker as it did by degrees, a circumstance that testifies to the excellence of the make, which is one advertised not to go out in any wind. Not that we felt wind, or even draught, perhaps because we were travelling with it. About this there was no doubt, for the perspiration burst out all over me and the burning air scorched my lungs. |