nd confusedly, to see the flies darting here
and there, and buzzing more loudly than ever, while Pomp had settled
into a decided snore. It was hotter than before, and great drops stood
on my face, and tickled as they ran together and made greater drops.
The children too were still playing about, and laughing merrily, and I
went on thinking that the flies must be teasing Pomp very much, and that
those children would laugh and play if the Indians came and buzzed round
the tent; and that one which had settled on the canvas just over my head
didn't frighten them by swelling out so big, and opening and shutting
his great jaws with such a loud snap. What a number of fish he must eat
in a day, and how I should have liked to watch him when he beat the
water with his tail, so as to stun the fish and make them easy to catch!

"And so that's where you live, is it, my fine fellow? Pomp and I will
come with a stick, and thrust it down the hole, and make you bite, and
drag you out. We should want a rope ready to put round your neck, and
another to tie your jaws, and one of us would have to slip it on pretty
quickly before you spread your wings and began to fly round the tent,
and began talking in that ridiculous way. Whoever heard of an alligator
imitating Morgan, and trying to deceive me like that, just as we were
going to catch him on the canvas where it was so tight? Eh! What say?
Why don't you bellow? What!--no, I shan't. He is very comfortable
here, and--Ah!"

That alligator had crept over into the tent, planted its foot upon my
chest, and was moving it heavily, as it said out of the darkness in
Morgan's voice--

"Oh, Master George, do wake up, my lad, and come! Be quick, pray!"

CHAPTER FORTY THREE.

Quite dark. My head confused. The alligator's foot on my chest. No;
it was the butt-end of a gun pushing me.

"Here! Don't! What's the matter?"

"I thought I should never get you to wake, sir. Come along. The
Indians are here."

I sprang out of the tent, with it gradually dawning upon me that I had
been sleeping heavily from early afternoon right into the darkness of
night, and dreaming away in a heavily confused fashion of the various
objects that had just filled my eyes and ears.

"You said the Indians were here?" I said, excitedly.

"Yes, my lad. Look!"

I gazed in the direction pointed out, and saw there was a bustle going
on at the block-house, where by a faint blaze men were throwing bucket