not strike you
that perhaps Peterkin has fallen into one of these?"

We both started and listened with breathless attention, for at that
moment we heard a faint groan not far from us. It was repeated almost
immediately, though so faintly that we could scarcely ascertain the
direction whence it came. We advanced cautiously, however, a few paces,
and discovered a hole in the ground, from which, at that very moment,
the dishevelled head of poor Peterkin appeared, like Jack coming out of
his box. His sudden appearance and serio-comic expression would have
been at any other time sufficient to have set us off in fits of
laughter; but joy at finding him, and anxiety lest he should prove to be
seriously hurt, restrained us at that time effectually.

"My dear fellow!" cried Jack, hurrying forward.

"Keep back! avaunt ye. Oh dear me, Jack, my poor head!" said Peterkin
with a sigh, pressing his hand to his forehead; "what an intolerable
whack I have got on my miserable caput. There; don't come nearer, else
you'll break through. Reach me your hand. That's it; thank'ee."

"There you are, all safe, my boy," cried Jack, as he drew Peterkin out
of the hole.--"But hollo! I say, Ralph, run down for some water; I
believe the poor fellow has fainted."

I sprang down the river-bank, and speedily returned with some water in
the crown of my wide-awake. Peterkin had recovered before I came back,
and a long draught quite restored him, so that in a few minutes he was
able to relate how the accident had befallen him.

"You see," said he, in a jocular tone, for it was a most unusually
severe accident indeed that could drive the fun out of our little
friend--"you see, after I lost sight of Jack, I took a leaf out of the
hare's book, and doubled on my course. This brought me, unhappily, to
the banks of the river, where I came upon one of the pitfalls that are
made by the niggers here to catch wild beasts, and in I went. I kept
hold of the surface boughs, however, scrambled out again, and pushed on.
But I had not gone ten yards when the ground began to crackle and sink.
I made a desperate bound to clear it, but my foot caught in a branch,
and down I went head foremost into the pit. And that's the whole of my
story. How long I remained there I know not. If I had known what time
it was when I dived in, and you were to tell me what o'clock it is now,
we might arrive at a knowledge of the time I have spent at the bottom of
that hole.