"The tide by this time was quite still, and the breeze sank almost at once, as we were shut in from the sea, when we were surprised to see the striped Portuguese flag, rise off a tall bamboo stick, among the bushes on the open shore, nearly abreast of us, where a low muddy-like wall was to be made out, with something of a thatched roof or two, and a sort of rude wooden jetty running before it into the water. Shortly after, Don JosÉ came paddling out again, and got on board, this time with an old cocked hat on, excusing himself for not having fired a gun—which was to save us expense, he remarked, being particular friends—seeing that he'd got to demand twelve dollars of harbour dues and duties, whereas, if he saluted, he must have charged fourteen. The cool impudence of this brought the chief officer from the capstan; but the steady face of the fellow, and the glance he took round the deck when the cadet told him he'd better be off at once, made me think he had something or other to back him. Mr Finch, as usual, fumed up into a passion, and told the men to fling him over into his canoe, which they accordingly did, without the least nicety about it; the Portuguese next minute picking himself up, and standing straight, with the look of a perfect devil, as he shook his fist at the whole ship, while the canoe slid off to the shore.

"Budge even so much as a single fathom, at present, we could not; and most of us were too much in the spirit of fun and venture to care a fig for having made an enemy of Don JosÉ So-on, as the cadet called him; indeed, it seemed rather to set a finer point on people's admiration of the green jungly-looking shore next to us, with its big aloes and agaves growing before the bush, and all sorts of cocoas, palms, monkey-bread, and tall white-flaked cotton trees, rising in every way out from over the rest. For my part, I thought more of the Portuguese interest, after all, than his hatred—which proved correct, by his soon sending out a sulky message by the mulatto, offering to sell us fowls and a bullock, at no ordinary price. However, all hands from the cabin were mad already to get ashore somewhere, and the cadets, bristling with fowling-pieces and rifles, each singing out that he was ready to supply the whole ship with fresh meat; so the mulatto had to sheer off, with a boat nearly lowered over his head.

"From where we lay at the time, what with the large creek off one bow, and the broad river ahead of us, spreading brimful along to the light, the water had the look of a huge lake, fringed in by a confused hazy bluish outline steeping in the heat, where the distance clipped behind the lumps of keen verdure, showering over a dark mangrove-covered point. Before the two large quarter-boats could be got ready for the ladies and the rest of us, in fact, we heard the gigful of writers and cadets beginning to pop away at everything they saw alive, out of sight of the ship, till at last we were afloat, too, pulling slowly into the middle of the stream, and the men eyeing us lazily as they turned-to about the rigging, to send up new spars in place of those lost. The old Indiaman's big bows stood looming up broad astern of us on the sluggish eddies round her cable, with her tall, steady forespars and furled yards rising white against the low line of marshy shore in the distance, and wavering in her shadow below, till the thick green branches of the next point shut her out, and the glare off the face of the creek shot level over all of us in the two cutters, wild with every kind of feeling that India passengers could have after two months' voyage.

"For my own part, I should have had rather a suspicion how absurd it was to go a-pleasuring in an African river we knew nothing about, especially when I saw that a day or two so long after the rains might suck it up, during ebb, into a pretty narrow mid-channel; all I thought of was, however, that I was steering the boat with Violet Hyde in it, the kitmagar holding his gaudy punkah over her before me, while the judge, with his gun in his hands, was looking out as eagerly, for the time, as the four griffins were pulling furiously, in spite of the heat that made the sweat run into their eyes.

"The other party were soon off ahead of us up the main river, under care of the Scotch surgeon, laughing, talking, and halloing in chase of the cadets who had first left. However, Sir Charles thought there was more likelihood of game along the creek, and the ladies fancied it something new, so I steered right into it; the fat midshipman, Simm, watching me critically as I handled the yoke-lines, which he had given up to me in a patronising way, and the sailor in the bow regarding the exertions of the griffins with a knowingly serious expression, while he dabbled his flipper at ease in the water.

"As the tide steadied, this said creek proved to be a smaller river, apparently from the hilly country I had noticed beyond the woods, by the clearness of its current, that showed the pale yellow reflection of the close bamboo-brake on one side, deep down into the light—the huge, sharp, green notched aloe-leaves and fern showing here and there out of it—the close, rank, stifling smell of rotten weeds and fungi giving place to the strange wild scent of the flowers, trailing and twisting in thick snaky coils up the stems on our opposite hand, and across from branch to branch, with showers of crimson and pink blossoms and white stars; still, eager as the ladies were to put foot on land, 'twas no use looking as yet for a spot of room, let alone going farther in.

"The cadets were not long in being blown, either; when the midshipman, the bowman, and I, had to relieve them. However, then I could look straight toward Violet Hyde's face, the shade of the scarlet punkah hanging over it, and her soft little straight nose and forehead catching a flickering burst from the leaves as we sheered at times under cover of the bank; while her eyelids, drooping from the glare, gave her bright eyes a half-sleepy sort of violet look, and it was only her lips that let you see how excited she felt. The griffin who had the tiller steering with the judgment of a tailor's 'prentice on a picnic to Twickenham, we came two or three times crash into the twigs of some half-sunk tree; then a blue bird like a heron would rise direct ahead of us, with its tall wet spindle legs and spurs glistening like steel behind it into the light, and a young snake in its sharp bill; or a grey crane rustled out of the cane from overhead, its long wings creaking in the air out of sight. Suddenly, you heard a long chirruping croak from a tree-frog, and the ground ones gave full chorus from farther in, whining and cackling and peep-peep-peeping in one complete rush that died as suddenly away again, like thousands of young turkeys. Then out in the midst of the quiet would come a loud clear wheetle-wheetling note from some curious fowl in an opening, with another of the same to match, dimmer amongst the thick of the bush. However, everything of the kind seemed to sink down with the heat at noon, the very buzz of flies round every dark feather of the cocoas, and the mosquito-hum along the bank, getting fainter; till one heard the heat, as it were, creeping and thrilling down through the woods, with the green light that steeped into both edges of the long creek; every reed, cane, leaf, and twig, seemingly, at last giving it back again with a whispering, hushing crackle, and the broad fans of the palms tingling in it with rays from them, as they trembled before you in the glare, back into the high bundles of knotted and jointed bamboo, with their spiky-tufted crowns.

"'Can you not almost feel the forest grow!' exclaimed Miss Hyde; while the boat floated quietly to one side, and her charming young face shining out from the punkah, before Master Gopaul's deucedly ugly one, coolly staring past his snub nose, made one think of a white English rose and a black puff-ball growing together under a toadstool; plenty of which, as red as soldiers' coats, and as big as targets, looked here and there out of the bank. It put new spirit into me to see her, but still we could do little more than shove across from one side to the other—till something all at once roused us up in the shape of a long scaly-like log, seemingly lying along in the sun, which tumbled off the edge with a loud splash, and two of the young fellows let drive from their fowling-pieces, just after the alligator had sunk to the bottom. Rather uncomfortable it was to come sheering right over him next moment, and catch a glimpse of his round red eyes and his yellow throat, as the mud and weeds rose over him.

"The other ladies shrieked, but Violet Hyde only caught hold of her father's arm and started back; though her blue eye and the clear cut of her pretty nostril opened out, too, for the moment her lips closed. Five minutes after, when a couple of large guinea-fowl sprang up, Sir Charles proved himself a better shot than the cadets, by dropping one of them over the water ahead of us, which was laid hold of by the reefer of the Indiaman, and stowed away fluttering into the stern-locker—Simm observing coolly that it was a scavengering carrion sort of bird, but perhaps one of his messmates might like to take it home stuffed to his sister. The judge merely smiled and patted the mid on the shoulder, remarking in great good-humour that he, Simm, would make a good attorney; and on we held, soaking to our shirts and panting, until the bowman hooked down the stem of a young plantain, with a huge bunch of full ripe yellow bananas under the long flapping leaves at its head, right into the midst of us, out of a whole clump of them, where the smooth face of the cove showed you their scarlet clusters of flowers and green round pods hanging over it, hidden as they were from above. Every man of us made a clutch, and the stem almost lifted Simm out of the boat with it, as it sprang back into the brake, rousing out a shower of gaudy-coloured butterflies, and a cloud of mosquitoes, and making the parroquets scream inside; while the cadets' mouths were so full they couldn't speak, the reefer making a gulp with the juice seeming to come out at his eyes, the sailor spitting out his quid and stuffing in a banana, and the ladies hoping they were safe to eat, as I peeled the soft yellow rind off, and handed one to Violet Hyde, which she tasted at once. But if ever one enters into the heart of things in the tropics, I'd say 'tis when that same delicious taste melts through and through and all over you, after chewing salt-junk for a space. I remember one foremast man, who was always so drunk ashore he used to remember nothing in India but 'scoffing 23 one juicy benanny,' as he called it; 'but hows'ever, Jack,' he'd say, ''twas blessed good, ye know, and I'm on the look-out for a berth again, jist for to go and have another.' One of us looked to the other, and Miss Hyde laughed and coloured a bit when I offered her a second, while her father said, full five minutes after, ''Gad, Violet, it almost made me think I saw Garden Reach in the Hooghly, and the Baboo's Ghaut!'

"This whole time we couldn't have got more than three-quarters of a mile from where the ship lay, when, all at once, the close growth on our left hand began to break into low bush, and at length a spot offered where we might get ashore tolerably, with two or three big red ant-hills heaped up out of the close prickly-pear plant, and the black ants streaming over the bank, as well as up the trunk of a large tree. The monkeys were keeping up a chattering stir everywhere about; and two or three bright green little lizards, changing into purple and back again, as they lay gleaming in the sun on the sides of the ant-heaps, darted their long tongues out like silver bodkins at the ants coming past. In we shoved with a cheer, and had scarce moored to the tree ere the ladies were being handed out and tripping over the ground-leaves to the ankles, starting on again at every rustle and prick, for fear of snakes; till the bowman in charge was left in the boat by himself, and, there being seven of us with guns over our arms, the next notion of the griffins was to get a sight of some 'natives.'

"In fact, there was a sort of a half-track leading off near the bank, through among the long coarse grass and the ferny sprouts of young cocoas, and a wide stretch of open country seen beyond it, dotted all over with low clumps of trees and bush rounded off in the gush of light, that gave it all a straw-coloured tint up to where a bare reddish-looking ridge of hill looked over a long swell of wild forest, off a hot, pale, cloudless sky. Here and there you saw the shadow of one bluff lying purple on the side of another, and a faint blue peak between, letting north'ard into some pass through the hills, but no signs of life save a few dun big-headed buffaloes feeding about a swampy spot not very far off, and rather too shaggy, by all appearance, to make pleasant company. Accordingly, we held for a few yards under the shade, where the fat mid, thinking to show off his knowingness by getting cocoa-nuts for the ladies, began to shy balls of mud from the creek-sides at the monkeys in the trees.

"However, he brought us rather more than he bargained for, till the whole blessed jungle seemed to be gathering between us and the boat to pelt us to death with nuts as big as eighteen-pound shot, husks and all; so off we had to hurry into the glare again, Sir Charles half-carrying his daughter through guinea-grass up to the waist—when somebody felt the smell of smoke, and next minute we broke out near it, wreathing up white from inside a high bamboo fence, propped up and tied all along with cocoa-nut husk. 'What the devil!' shouted the foremost cadet, as soon as he found the opening, 'they're cannibals!—roasting a black child, by heaven!' and in he dashed, being no chicken of a fellow ashore at any rate, the others after him, while the judge, Simm, and I kept outside with the ladies, who were all of a shudder of course, what with the thought, and what with the queer scent of roast meat that came to us. 'Ha, ha!' laughed the cadet next moment, 'it's only a monkey, after all!—come in, though, Sir Charles, if you please, sir—nobody here, ladies.'

"There, accordingly, was the little skinned object twirling slowly between two bamboo sticks, over a fire beneath two or three immense green leaves on a frame, with its knees up not to let its legs burn; about a dozen half-open sheds and huts, like little corn-stacks, thatched close with reeds, and hung with wattled mats of split bamboo, giving the place more the look of a farmyard than a village; as there was a big tree spreading in the middle, a few plantains, yams, and long maize-stalks flowering out of the coarse guinea-grass which the niggers hadn't taken the trouble to tread down all round inside of the fence.

"However, we weren't long of perceiving an old grey-headed black sitting on his hams against the post of a hut, watching us all the time; and a villainously ugly old thief he looked, with a string of Aggry beads about his head, and a greegree charm-bag hung round his shrivelled neck, which was stuck through a hole in some striped piece of stuff that fell over to his knees, as he sat mumbling and croaking to himself, and leering out of the yellows of his eyes, though too helpless to stir. Something out of the way attracted my notice, glittering in front of the hut over his head; but, on stepping up to it, I wasn't a little surprised to find it the stern-board of some small vessel or other, with the tarnished gilt ornament all round, and the name in large white letters—'Martha Cobb'—the port, Boston, still to be made out, smaller, below. This I didn't think so much of in itself, as the craft might have been lost; till, on noticing that the old fellow's robe was neither more nor less than a torn American ensign, in spite of his growls and croaks I walked past him into the hut, where there was a whole lot of marling-spikes, keys, and such like odds and ends, carefully stored up in a bag, marked with the same name, besides a stewpan with some ostrich feathers stuck where the handle had been, as if this rascally black sinner wore it on his head on state occasions, being probably the head man and a justice of the peace.

"What struck me most, though, was a pocket-book with a letter inside it, in a woman's hand, addressed to the master of the brig Martha Cobb; dated a dozen years before, yellow and fusty, and with tarry finger-marks on it, as if the poor skipper, God knows, had read it over and over in his cabin many a fresh breeze betwixt there and Boston. I put it in my pocket, with a curse to the old black devil, as he croaked out and fell on his face trying to bite me with his filed teeth when I passed out, to follow the rest out of the bamboo-pen; wondering, of course, where all the other negroes could be, unless they were dodging about the river shore to watch the Indiaman—little chance as there was of their trying the same joke with the Seringapatam as with the Martha Cobb.

"As for the women, however, I had scarce joined our party going out, when we met a half-naked black hag with a bunch of cocoa-nuts and husk. The moment she saw us she gave a squeal like an old hen, and fell flat, while several younger ones, jogging along with their naked black piccaninnies on their backs, turned tail and were off with a scream. Next minute we were almost as startled as they could be when three plump young jetty damsels dropped down right into the bushes alongside of us, off as many tall cocoas which they'd been climbing by a band round them, for the nuts. 'Mercy on us!' said the eldest of our lady passengers; and it was rather queer, since they had nothing earthly upon them save very very short pet——I beg your pardon, ma'am, but I didn't know any other word. However, off they scampered for the woods, Simm and one of the cadets hard after them, and we turning away to smother our laughter, especially as the griffin had forgot his mother being with us. The middy being first started, he was a good way ahead, when all at once the sternmost of the black girls tripped in the band she had over her shoulder, Simm giving a cheer as he made prize of his chase; but scarce before the whole three of the dark beauties had him smothered up amongst them, laughing yelling, and squalling as they hauled him about; till I saw the dirk Simm sported glitter in one of their hands, and I made towards the spot in the notion of their finishing him in right earnest.

"The black damsels ran off together as the unlucky reefer picked himself up, coming to us with his hair rubbed up like a brush, his cap out of shape in his hand, and the gold band off it, his red face shining, and all the gilt anchor-buttons off his jacket, besides being minus his dirk. 'Simm, Simm, my fine fellow!' said his friend the cadet, like to die with laughing, 'what—what did they do to you?—why, your head looks like a chimney-sweep's mop!' Simm knocked his cap against a tree to set it right, without a word, and we followed the others to the boat, where he swore, however, that he'd kissed 'em all three, at which Mrs Atkins fairly took him a slap on the side of the head, saying he was a nasty, improper boy, and she was glad his poor mother couldn't see him run after creatures of that kind in African woods. 'Natives, indeed!' said she, 'I have heard so often of native modesty, too, in books; but, after all, there's nothing like experience, I think, Sir Charles?' 'Certainly not, ma'am,' replied the judge, humouring her, as she hadn't often had the chance of speaking to him before; ''tis almost as bad in India, though, you know.' 'Oh, there, Sir Charles,' said the lady, 'I never happened to go out, of course, except in the carriage!' 'Ah,' said the judge, coolly, 'you should try an elephant, sometimes, ma'am.'

"After this, as Sir Charles was bent on getting a shot at something better, with a glass or two of Madeira to refresh us, we pulled farther still up the small river, passing the mouth of a deep marshy inlet, where I noticed a few long canoes belonging to the Congo village we had seen; the close, heavy heat of the woods getting, if possible, worse; and the rank green growth topping up round us as flat as before; when the sound of a loud rush of water up-stream broke upon us through the bush to northward, the surface rippling, and a slight cool breath seeming to flutter across it now and then, the very noise putting fresh soul into you. Suddenly we opened out on a broad bend, where it was hard work to force her round, and next moment a low fall was gleaming before us, where a hill-stream came washing and plashing over one wide rocky step above another in the turn, then sweeping out of a deep pool to both hands, and running away ahead, in between the spread of trees, seemingly to a sort of a lagoon, where you saw the light in the middle glancing bright down upon its face. A broad blue burst of air and light struck down along the hollow the stream rushed out of, off the roots of a regular mountain, leaning back to the sky, with its big tufted knolls and its shady rifts thrown out blue beyond one or two thick scaly-stemmed date-trees, waving their long, feathery, fringe-like leaves to the least bit of a breeze, on as many rough points near at hand; the whole shape of the mountain you couldn't see for the huge mahogany-trees, teak, and African oak, rising up over one shoulder into a lump of green forest. In five minutes more we were through into the lagoon, which very possibly took round into the main river again, only the opposite end, to our surprise, was all afloat with logs of big timber choking it up, so that there we must stick or go back upon our wake.

"However, the lagoon itself being broad enough and round enough in all conscience, with a deep hollow opening up out of it on the high ground, the judge and the cadets thought a better place couldn't have been chosen for landing after a little sport, while we left the fair ladies to rest in the cool, and look at the lotus-lilies spread all over one cove of it, floating white on their large leaves. The green edge of scum ran about the black shadow on the rest of it, gathering round where a big branch or two had fallen in, with the hot white sky looking bluer out through the broad leaves coming together aloft, and the showers of little sharp ones in the tamarind twigs, mangoes, ironwood, sumach, and all sorts, while here and there a knot of crimson blossoms looked out from under the boughs in the dark, humming with small flies. Beautiful spot as it was every way, especially after the heat, yet I didn't much like the idea of letting the ladies stay by themselves, except the sailor and the kitmagar. Nothing particular had turned up to trouble us, certainly, but I daresay 'twas because there was one of them I never looked at without her soft fairy-like air making me think of something that might happen to her, life-like though she seemed. When I saw a big branch over her head, I kept fancying what it would do if it fell—and now, the thumping slabs and stones we scrambled over up into the gully toward the mountain, seemed to have come tumbling down off it to the very water's edge, covered with nets of thick creeping plants and trails of flat, fingery-leaved flowers, such as you see in hot-houses at home. A few yards higher, too, where the ground broke away into a slanting hollow out of the bush, 'twas all trampled and crushed, half-withering together in the heat of the sun, the young trees twisted and broken, and two or three good-sized ones lying out from the roots, which I set to the score of the timbers rolling down their logs, for some craft that evidently got their cargoes hereaway.

"After all, the thought of a slap at some wild game was tempting enough, the judge appearing to consider anyone but a sportsman nobody at all; so up we went behind him out of the gully till we were all blowing like so many porpoises on the head of it, Sir Charles raising his finger as we peeped across a grassy slope right under us, where a whole drove of small slender-legged antelopes were feeding. We had just time to rest, getting a breath of air off the heights, when one of the foremost lifted its head, listening the opposite way from us; next moment the entire scatter of them came sweeping direct over to leeward in a string—we could almost catch their bright black eyes through the grass, when the crack of our seven barrels turned them bolt off at a corner, and they were gone like wind on water. All of us had missed save Sir Charles Hyde, but his rifle-bullet had sent one of the antelopes springing up in the air ten feet or so, rolling over and over into the grass again, where we found it lying with its tongue out, and its large eye glazing amidst the blades and dust—a pair of huge turkey buzzards falling, as it were, out of two specks in the sun above us, already, and rising with an ugly flap while we got round the dead creature.

"Hallo!' said the mid suddenly, looking back over toward the hollow we'd come out of, 'what's that?'

"From where we stood we could just see through the wild cane to the mouth of the gully, half-a-mile down or more, leading upon the trees by the lagoon. I thought I could hear a dull heavy sound now and then going thump thump down the hollow and along it, the stones rumbling from one spot to another at the root of the hill; but noticing a light smoke rising farther into the course of the creek, with a faint echo of axes at work somewhere in the woods below, I wasn't sorry to find the timberers were still in the river, showing we weren't the only civilised folks that thought it fit to visit. Perhaps it might have been a quarter of an hour or more, however, and we were all looking out sharp for birds of any kind to pop at, happening to turn my head, I saw the long reeds were moving about the banks below and the trees twisting about furiously, and no sooner had I made a few paces than good heavens!—right in the break of the trees at the landing-place—there was a huge brute of some sort coming slowly up out of the water; then another, and another, glistening wet in the bright light as the shadow of the branches slipped behind them. A blindness came over my eyes, and I had scarce time to make out the big block-like heads and moving trunks of five or six black African elephants, ere the whole case flashed upon me, and away I dashed full-speed down the slope. The big beasts were turning quietly off into the hollow, and two or three of their calves trotted after them out of the bushes, munching the young cane-stalks as they lifted their pillars of legs and their tufty little tails, when I passed a fire of sticks blazing under a slab of rock, with the judge's guinea-fowl plucked and roasting before it from a string, the bowman's tarpaulin and his pipe lying near by—a sight that doubled the horror in me, to know he had left the boat at all; and no doubt, as I thought, taken fright and run off, man-o'war's-man though he was. I made three springs over the stones down to the water, terrified to look in, hearing it, as I did, splash and wash about the sides, up among the leaves of the trees, while a couple of monstrous brutes were to be seen by the light in the midst of it, still wallowing about, and seeming to enjoy sending the whole pool in wide rings and waves as far as it would go, with the noise besides; the one-half swimming and the biggest standing aground as he poured the water out of his long trunk all over his back, then broke off a branch and waved it to and fro like a fan round his flapping leathery ears.

"Such a moment I hope never to know again—not the least sign of the boat could I see in the green black blink of the place, after the glare above, and I stood like a madman at the thought of what the herd of monsters had done when they came suddenly down upon it; then I gave a wild cry, and levelled my ship's musket at the big elephant's head as he brought his small cunning eye slowly to bear upon me, dropped the branch, and began to swing his forehead, all the time looking at me, and wading out to the shallow—by Jove! my flesh creeps at it just now—though I couldn't have stirred for worlds till he was close enough for me to fire into that devilish eye of his. 'Twas no more than the matter of half-a-minute—till you may fancy what I felt to catch sight, all at once, of the cutter splashing up and down in the gloom below the branches, the ladies and the Hindoo crouching down terrified together, except Violet Hyde, who stood straight, holding the boat firm in by a bough, her white face fixed through the shadow, and her hair floating out of her straw bonnet each time her head went up among the leaves, with her glittering eyes on the two elephants.

"Suddenly some heavy black figure dropped almost right over her into the boat, and she let go with a low cry, and sank down with her hands over her eyes; when they went sheering out towards the creek, the foretopman handling his boat-hook in her bow, without his tarpaulin. As for the wild elephants, I had just time to come to myself before the foremost had his feet on the stones below me, getting cautiously out of the pool; these awkward antics of theirs being possibly signs of too much satisfaction in a bathe for them to show aught like fury, if you didn't rouse them; so I was slipping quietly round the nearest tree when I heard the cadets halloing up the hill. The old bull elephant seemed a dangerous customer to meet, and I was hurrying over the dead grass and branches to give warning, just as Sir Charles Hyde could be seen coming down before the rest, his rifle over his shoulder.

"However, he brought up the moment I sang out to stop: both the elephants were stalking off lower down into the hollow, and I dropped behind the slab where Tom Wilkes had been roasting his bird, when some fool of a cadet let drive at the bull elephant from above, hitting him fair on the front. You heard the rifle-bullet hit slap against it as if on an anvil: the she elephant made off at a fast trot, but the big brute himself turned round on the moment, lifting up his trunk straight aloft with a sharp trumpeting scream through it, and looked round till his small red eye lighted on the judge, who seemed quite out of breath from his sport.

'The fire! that fire, for God's sake, Mr Westwood, else I am lost!' called out Sir Charles, in a calm distinct key from where he stood with his eye fixed on the elephant, and could see me, too—a moment or two before the huge round-backed lump of a brute came running round into the track, stumbling heavily up the dead branches of the fallen trees and the dry guinea-grass, with a savage roar between his two white tusks—and I saw what the judge meant just in time to throw over the whole heap of flaming cocoa-tree husk among the withered grass and stuff a few yards before the monster, as dry as tinder, while the light air coming down the gully of the mountain, drove it spreading across his course up through the twigs, and sweeping in one sudden gust of fire up to the very end of his trunk. I saw it lift over the smoke like a black serpent, then another scream from the brute, and away he was charging into the hollow again, the flame licking up among the grass astern of him, and darting from one bough to another towards the cane-brake below. I had scarce drawn a long breath and remembered the devil's own thought that had come into my head, when the judge called to me, ere he slapped me on the shoulder.

"'You did nobly there, my dear boy,' said Sir Charles; 'managed it well! 'Gad, it was a crisis, though, Mr Westwood!' 'I'm afraid, however, sir,' said I, eyeing the crackling bushes, smoking and whitening to a dead smoulder in the sunlight, then flashing farther down as the hill-breeze rustled off, 'I'm afraid we shall have the woods burning about our ears!'

"Down we hurried accordingly, and hailed the cutter, where, scarce had we leisure to pass a few quick words and tumble in, before I heard a shout beyond the other turn of the creek, through the end of the lagoon; then something like the cheep of ropes through blocks, with the bustle of men's feet on a deck, and next minute a perfect hubbub of cries, whether Dutch, Portuguese, English, or all together, I couldn't say—only it wasn't likely the last would kick up such a bother for nothing. Four or five Kroomen came leaping round and along the float of logs at the far end, their large straw hats shining in the light over their jet faces, as they peered across into the lagoon. The minute after they vanished we saw the white upper spars of a schooner slide above the farthest of the wood, and her bowsprit shoved past the turn just enough to show her sharp lead-coloured bow, with the mouth of a gun out of a port, and a fellow blowing the red end of his match behind it. All at once the chorus of shouts and cries ceased, and a single voice sang out along the water, clear, stern, and startling, in bad Portuguese, 'Queren sietÉ? who are you?' Still we gave no answer, quietly shoving off as fast as we could, the flicker of the fire in the brake behind the trees beginning to show itself through the black shade of the lagoon. 'Queren sietÉ?' sang out the voice, louder than before, in a threatening way, and the logs were knocking and plashing before the schooner as the Kroomen hauled at them to make an opening. 'Amigos! Amigos!' hailed we in turn; 'Ingleses, gentlemen!' shouted the cadet who knew Portuguese, calling to them not to fire, for heaven's sake, else they would do us some harm. With this, the hubbub was worse than before; they plainly had some design on us, from the confusion that got up; but by that time we were pulling hard into the narrow of the river, and took the fair current of it as soon as the boat was past the falling stream we had seen before, till we were round into the next reach.

"In fact, the rate we all bent our backs at this time was pretty different from coming up: the cadets seemed hardly to feel the heat, fierce and close though it was, at thought of those that might be in our wake, and nobody spoke a word at ease till at last, after an hour's hard work, taking it in turns, we came full in sight of the Indiaman at her anchor on the broad current. The ladies blessed the very ropes hanging from her bowsprit, and we got safe aboard, where we found the two other boats had come back long before; and every one of us turned in directly after sundown, as tired as dogs.

"Well, I didn't suppose I had slept an hour, dreaming terribly wild sort of dreams about Violet Hyde and elephants, then that I'd saved her myself, and was stooping to kiss her rosy lips, when a sudden noise on deck startled me. I shoved myself into my clothes, and rushed on the quarter-deck. She had gone aground at her stern in swinging in the water the Portuguese rascal gave her, canted a little over to starboard, away from the shore; and till morning flood nothing could be done to haul her off. The fog was rolling down with the land-breeze, and the jabber in the woods again thickened the confusion, when all at once a dim flash off the shore glimmered in the white fog, and a round-shot whistled just astern, pretty well aimed for her bilge, which would have cost us some work if it had hit. After that, however, there was no more of it, the fellow probably having spent either all his powder or his balls. As for his fort, I heard the chief officer swearing he would knock it about his ears next day—a thing that couldn't have done him much harm, certainly, unless mud were dear.

"No sooner had the men gone below, leaving the ordinary anchor-watch, than Mr Finch, to my great surprise, walked up to me, and gave me a strange suspicious look, hinting that he began to have a good guess of what I really was, but if anything new of the kind turned up, said he, he should know better what to say to me. 'Mr Finch,' said I, starting, 'this won't do, sir—you'll either speak your mind before cabin and cuddy, or to-morrow morning, by Jove! you'll go quietly ashore with me, sir—as I think, now you remind me of it, we settled to do, already!' The mate's face whitened, and he eyed me with a glare of malice, as I turned on my heel and began to walk the quarter-deck till he went below.

"However, the thought of the thing stuck to me, and I kept walking in the dark to get rid of it: the four or five men of the anchor-watch shuffling lazily about, and all thick save ahead up the river, where the land-breeze blew pretty strong, bringing now and then a faint gleam out of the mist. I was leaning against the fore-chains, listening to the ebb-time, and thinking, when I saw one of the men creeping in from the bowsprit, which you just saw, where it ran up thick into the dusk, with scarce a glimpse of the jib-boom and flying-jib-boom beyond.

"The sailor came up, touching his hat to me, and said he thought he saw something queer off the boom-end. 'Well,' said I gruffly, 'go and tell your mate, then.' I didn't know the fellow's voice, though it had a particular twang in it, and he wasn't in Jacobs' watch, I knew. 'Why, your honour,' he persisted, 'I knows pretty well what you air—asking your pardon, sir—but I think you'd make more out of it nor any of the mates! It's some'at rather skeary, sir,' added he. Accordingly I took hold of the man-ropes and swung myself up the bowsprit, and had my feet on the foot-rope below the jib-boom, when I heard his breath, following behind me. 'Never you trouble yourself, my man,' said I; 'one at a time!' and back he went in board again—for something curious in his way struck me; but I wanted to see what he meant. I had just got near the flying-jib, half-stowed in as it was on the boom, and I fancied, with a creep of my blood in me, I made out a man's head over the sail; but next moment a hand like a vice caught me by the throat, and some one growled out, 'Now ye infernal man-o'-war hound, I have ye—and down you goes for it!'

"The instant I felt it, my coolness came back; as for grappling, I couldn't, and the ebb current ran below to her bows at a rate fit to carry one out to sea in half-an-hour. I saw the whole plot in a twinkling, and never moved; instead of that I gave a sort of laugh, and followed the husky twang of the other man to a tee. 'He won't come, Harry, my lad!' said I, and my ugly friend let go before he had time to think twice. 'He be blowed!' said Harry, scornfully; 'an' why won't he, mate?' He had scarce the words out of his mouth, though, ere I took him a twist that doubled him over the spar, and down he slipped, hanging by a clutch of the sail. 'I suppose, my fine fellow,' said I, 'you forgot Fernando Po, and those nigger adventures of yours—eh?' and I went in without more ado.

"I hadn't been ten minutes on deck, however, when I heard both of them swearing something or other to the first mate. A little after Finch came forward to me, with a ship's lantern, and three or four of the men behind. 'Mr Collins, or whatever's your name, sir,' said he aloud, 'I believe you've been seen just now at the bowsprit-end, making signals or something to the shore! You're in arrest at once, sir, and no more about it!' 'What the deuce!' said I, my blood up, and pulling out a pair of pocket-pistols I had had in the boat, 'let me see the man to——' At the moment a blow of a handspike from near the mast laid me senseless on the deck, and I knew nothing more.—But I see 'tis too far gone in the night to carry out the yarn, ladies!"