VIII

“Can I really be beginning to freeze?” I wondered sleepily. “Being frozen always begins by sleepiness, they say. Better be drowned than frozen⁠—let them drag me out in the net; but never mind, I don’t care whether it’s drowning or freezing, if only that stick, or whatever it is, wouldn’t poke me in the back, and I could forget everything.”

I lost consciousness for a second.