CHAPTER TWELVE.
HOW I JOINED THE GOOD SHIP "ARROW." It was a still, sultry afternoon, and as I lay on my oars half-a-mile from shore I made up my mind I had little help to look for from the breezes; nor, as the tide was then running, could I afford to drift.

I must row steadily, unless I wished to find myself out in the open, without supplies, before nightfall.

However, that was no great hardship, and after my idle week in the cave I was glad enough (had my stomach only been a little less empty!) of a little hard work.
Whether the two men whose boat I had borrowed discovered their loss sooner or later I do not know to this day.

But they might have left me a handier craft.

I knew her of yore, an old Rathmullan tub, useful enough to ferry market women across to Inch, but ill-suited for a single rower on a windless sea.
For all that I was glad enough to have her, and feel myself once more my own master.
I would fain have put her head to Knockowen had I dared.