Leach got into the
jolly-boat, and was pulled off to the launch. Both were sound asleep in
less than five minutes after their heads touched their temporary pillows.
Chapter XIX.
Ay, he does well enough, if he be disposed,
And so do I too; he does it with a better grace, but
I do it more natural.
TWELFTH NIGHT.
The sleep of the weary is sweet. Of all the party that lay thus buried in
sleep, on the verge of the Great Desert, exposed at any moment to an
assault from its ruthless and predatory occupants, but one bethought him
of the danger; though _he_ was, in truth, so little exposed as to have
rendered it of less moment to himself than to most of the others, had he
not been the possessor of a fancy that served oftener to lead him astray
than for any purposes that were useful of pleasing. This person was in one
of the boats, and as they lay at a reasonable distance from the land, and
the barbarians would not probably have known how to use any craft had they
even possessed one, he was consequently safe from everything but a
discharge from their long muskets. But this remote risk sufficed to keep
him awake, it being very different things to foster malice, circulate
gossip, write scurrilous paragraphs, and cant about the people, and to
face a volley of fire-arms.
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