m," he kept saying,
"an evil dream."

"A lying dream," suggested Christina anxiously.

"Yes," he hastened to add, "a lying dream."

"About--about little Paul?" was her timid question.

David was silent for a while, and then answered. "I saw him dead," he
replied, with a shudder. "God! I saw it as plain as I saw him a
moment ago in the kraal."

They heard the child's gleeful shout the same instant. "I've got you!
I've got you!" he cried from without.

"He has a water-tortoise," explained Christina with a smile. "Paul,"
she called aloud, "come indoors."

"Ja," shouted the child, and they heard him run up the steps of the
stoep.

"Look," he said, standing at the door, "I found this in the grass.
What sort is it, father?"

David saw something lithe and sinuous in the child's hands, and
stiffened in every limb. Paul had a skaapstikker in his grip, the
green-and-yellow death-snake that abounds in the veldt. Its head lay
on his arm, its pin-point eyes maliciously agleam, and the child
gripped it by the middle. Christina stood petrified, but the boy
laughed and dandled the reptile in glee.

"Be still, Paul," said David, in a voice that was new to him--"be
still; do not move."

The child looked up at him in astonishment. "Why?" he began.

"Be still," commanded David, and went over to him cautiously. The
serpent's evil head was raised as he approached, and it hissed at
him. Paul stood quite quiet, and David advanced his naked hand to his
certain death and the delivery of his child. The reptile poised, and
as David snatched at it, it struck--but on his sleeve. The next
instant was a delirious vision of writhing green and yellow; there
was a cry from Paul, and the snake was on the floor. David crushed it
furiously with his boot.

Christina snatched the child. "Did it bite you, Paul!" she screamed.
"Did it bite you?"

The boy shook his head, but David interposed with a voice of thunder.

"Of course it did!" he vociferated with blazing eyes; "what else did
my dream point to? But we'll fight with God yet. Bring me the child,
Christina."

On the plump forearm of Paul they found two minute punctures and two
tiny points of blood. David drew his knife, and the child shrieked
and struggled.

"Get a hot iron, Christina," cried David, and gripped Paul with his
knees.

In the morning the room was wild and grisly with blood and the smell
of burnt flesh, and David lay face downwards on the floor, writhing
as the echoe