"It is delightfully cool," he said to himself, and he thrust his arm
down farther, when his fingers came in contact with something rough,
which started away, making the water swirl in a tremendous eddy, and
caused the sudden abstraction of the lad's arm, but not so quickly that
he did not feel a sharp pang, and a tiny fish dropped from the skin on
to the bottom of the boat.

"The little wretch!" muttered Rob; and the lesson was sufficient. He
did not feel the slightest desire to tempt the cool water more, but
applied his lips to the little bite, which was bleeding freely, thinking
the while that if one of those savage little fish could produce such an
effect, what would be the result of an attack by a thousand.

Day was near at hand as Rob sat there, though it was still dark, and a
cold mist hung over the water; but the nocturnal creatures had gone to
rest, and here and there came a chirrup or long-drawn whistle to tell
that the birds were beginning to stir, instinctively knowing that before
long the sun would be up, sending light and heat to chase away the mists
of night. Now and then, too, there was a splash or a wallowing sound,
as of some great creature moving in the shallows, close up beneath where
the trees overhung the water, and the boy turned his head from place to
place, half in awe, half in eagerness to know what had made the sound.

But he could make out nothing that was more than twenty or thirty yards
from where the boat swung to her moorings; and, turning his head more
round, he sat thinking of the adventures of the previous day, and
wondered where the puma might be.

"It was a stupid thing to do to run right before that gun," he said to
himself; "but I hadn't time to think that Mr Brazier would fire, and I
didn't want the poor beast to be killed."

Rob sat thinking of how gentle and tame the great cat-like creature
seemed, and a curious sensation of sorrow came over him as he thought of
it crawling away into some shelter to die in agony from the effects of
the deadly wounds inflicted by Brazier's gun.

"And if I had not tumbled down," he said to himself, "it would have been
me instead;" and now he shuddered, for the full truth of his narrow
escape dawned upon him.

"It would have been horrid," he thought; "I never felt before how near
it was."

He leaned back and looked around at the misty darkness and then up at
the sky, where all at once a tiny patch began to glow and rapidly become
warm