wax taper that he always
carried in the brass match-box, part of which formed a stick.

He was kneeling by my side directly and had hold of my hand, when at his
touch my senses seemed to come back to me.

"Quick!--the guns!" I panted; "wild beasts!--a crocodile, an ape,
uncle. I have been hearing them come."

"Nonsense! my boy," he said, smiling.

"No, no; it is no nonsense, uncle. Quick!--the guns!"

"No, my dear boy, it is nonsense. There are no noxious or dangerous
beasts here. You are quite safe from them. You have been dreaming,
Nat."

"I've not been asleep," I said piteously.

"Haven't you, my lad?" he said, with one hand on my brow and the other
on my wrist; "then you have been fancying all these troubles. Nat, my
boy, you have got a touch of fever. I'm very glad you woke me when you
did."

"Fever, uncle?" I gasped, as the horror of my situation increased, and
like a flash came the idea of being ill out in that wilderness, away
from all human help and comfort; and, ludicrous is it may sound, I
forgot all about Uncle Dick, and began to think of Dr Portly, who had a
big brass plate upon his door in the Clapham Road.

"Yes, my boy, a touch of fever, but we'll soon talk to him, Nat; we'll
nip him in the bud. A stitch in time saves nine. Now you shall see
what's in that little flat tin box I brought. I saw you stare at it
when I packed up."

"I thought it was preserving things, uncle," I said.

"So it is, my boy, full of preserving things, one of which you shall
soon have for a dose. I hope you like bitters, Nat?"

He laughed so pleasantly that he seemed to give me courage, but I
glanced in a frightened way at the opening as I said that I did not much
mind.

He saw my glance, and went outside with a cup in his hand, to come back
in a few minutes with it full of water from a pool close by.

"No wild beasts about, Nat, my boy," he said merrily. "They were only
fever phantoms."

"But I have not been to sleep, uncle," I protested.

"Sign that you are ill, Nat, because generally you drop off in an
instant and sleep soundly for hours. There are no wild beasts, my boy,
in these islands."

"But I'm sure I heard a great ape breathing hard, and it broke off a
great branch in the forest."

"And I'm sure, Nat, that you heard Ebo snoring; and as to the branch
breaking, you heard, I dare say, a dead one fall. They are always
falling in these old forests. We don't notice the noise in the day