Look here, friends," I added, "I have kept something about me in case the worst should come to the worst," and I produced a little bottle containing a particularly swift and deadly poison done up into tabloids, and gave one to each of them.

"My advice is," I added, "that if you see we are going to be exposed to torture or to any dreadful form of death, you should take one of these, as I mean to do, and cheat the Abati of their vengeance." "That is all very fine," said the Professor as he pocketed his tabloid, "but I never could swallow a pill without water at the best of times, and I don't believe those beasts will give one any.

Well, I suppose I must suck it, that's all.

Oh! if only the luck would turn, if only the luck would turn!" Three more days went by without any sign of Higgs's aspiration being fulfilled.

On the contrary, except in one respect, the luck remained steadily against us.