d wherever we had to journey across the open the heat was
intense.

In the shady parts the green of the undergrowth looked delicate and
pale, but in the sunshine it was of the most vivid green; and bathing in
it, as it were, flies and beetles hummed and buzzed, and beat their
gauzy wings, so that they seemed invisible, while wherever there was a
bare patch of stony or rocky earth lizards were hurrying in and out, and
now and then a drab-looking little serpent lay twisted up into a knot.

The bearers stepped along lightly enough beneath their loads, and I
observed that they never looked to right or left, or seemed to admire
anything before them, their eyes being always fixed upon the earth where
they were about to plant their feet.

Ti-hi in particular tried to warn me to be on the look-out, pointing
over and over again to the spade-headed little serpents we saw now and
then gliding in amongst the grass.

"Killum," said Jimmy upon one of these occasions, and he suited the word
to the action by striking one of these little reptiles with his spear
and breaking its back. After this he spat viciously at the little
creature, picking it up by its tail and jerking it right away amongst
the trees.

"No killum kill all a body," said Jimmy nodding; and he went through a
sort of pantomime, showing the consequences of being bitten by a viper,
beginning with drowsiness, continuing through violent sickness, which it
seemed was followed by a fall upon the earth, a few kicks and struggles,
and lastly by death, for the black ended his performance by stretching
himself out stiffly and closing his eyes, saying:

"Jimmy dead; black fellow dig big hole and put um in de ground. Poor
old Jimmy!"

Then he jumped up and laughed, saying: "Killum all um snake! No good!
No!"

"I say, Joe Carstairs," said Jack Penny, who had watched the performance
with a good deal of interest; "don't that chap ever get tired?"

"Oh yes; and goes to sleep every time he gets a chance," I said.

"Yes! but don't his back ache? Mine does, horrid, every day, without
banging about like that;" and as if he felt his trouble then Jack Penny
turned his rueful-looking boy's face to me and began softly rubbing his
long man's back just across the loins.

It was very funny, too, when Jack was speaking earnestly. In an
ordinary conversation he would go on drawl, drawl, drawl in a bass
voice; but whenever he grew excited he began to squeak and talk in a
high-pitc