ppose now that we have
done measuring the snake, we may throw him away. The Hottentots, I
believe, eat their flesh. But I conclude none of us have any great
inclination to make our dinner off him."

"No, thank you, sir," said Frank, "not for me."

"Nor for me either, doctor," cried Nick. "I think I'd rather go without
food for a week. Here, Ernest, old fellow--you had better go and lie
down a bit. You look as if you were having it out with the python
still."

Warley was too unwell to rejoin the party all that day and the next.
The shock he had undergone was a very severe one; and would in all
likelihood have prostrated any one of his companions for a far longer
period. He lay under the shade of the trees on the soft grass the whole
day, neither speaking himself nor heeding the remarks of others. Always
inclined to be serious and thoughtful, this incident had had the effect
of turning his mind to subjects for which his light-hearted companions
had little relish, and which Lavie himself could hardly follow. Even
when he resumed the old round of occupations, as he did in the course of
the third day, Frank and Nick noticed a change in him, which they could
not understand.

Meanwhile Omatoko's bow and arrows proceeded rapidly, and were completed
on the morning of the third day. Their construction was a great puzzle
to the English lads. The bow was a little less than three feet long,
and perhaps three-quarters of an inch thick--neatly enough shaped, and
rounded off, but looking little better than a child's toy. Omatoko had
strung it with some sinew from the carcass of the goat. He had looped
this over the upper end of the bow, and rolled it round the other in
such a fashion that by merely twisting the string like a tourniquet, it
might be strung to any degree of tension. The arrows too were wholly
different from any they had ever seen. The strong reeds brought from
the edge of the water had been cut off in lengths of about two feet. At
one end the notch was inserted; to the other a movable head, made of
bone, was attached, which stuck fast enough to the shaft during its
flight through the air, but which became detached from it as soon as it
was fixed in the body of any animal. These bone-heads, Omatoko told
them, were always dipped in some poison, which caused even a slight
puncture made by them to be fatal. The entrails of the kaa, or poison
grub, were considered the most efficient for this purpose; but