They were insolent, and he challenged them to fight; but they only ridiculed him.
"You are the fellows that have been bothering me all night," he shouted, and dropping on one knee, he took a sheath knife from the tender and plunged it into the breast of one of the men.

In a flash of reason he saw the knife quivering in a post.
Again the fevered voyager started, the paddle all the while telling him that he would soon strike some town or village.

Two or three times the overwhelming desire for water compelled him to return to the river and drink.

Every time he descended or climbed the dyke he grew weaker and finally decided to lie down at all hazards and sleep.

The paddle earnestly remonstrated: "It is death.