were livid with terror, and some
seconds passed before either had recovered his senses sufficiently to
act. Then one man, with a great sweep of his arms, caught up all the
children into one tumble bunch, and flung them screaming with pain and
surprise under the bed of the adjoining room. The other, who was
directly responsible for the mischief, seeing that the only chance to
save his house and himself was to get Gum outside, clutched the smoking
monkey in his arms and rushed to the door. Quick as the movement was, it
was not quick enough. Those inside heard a deafening report; the house
was filled with smoke; the doorway became a heap of fallen timber, and
the blackened body of a man lay groaning among the charred ruins. One of
the robbers, their wives, and all the children were safe. But when the
smoke cleared away, and the body by the door was examined, life was all
but extinct. For weeks the robber hung between life and death. It forms
no part of this story to tell what pains he suffered, or what agonies of
mind he passed through, or how, when months after he was able to crawl
from his bed and go out into the air it was to see never more the
sunlight or the flowers with his sightless eyes. Certainly Donald's
words had come true. When the miner heard that evening what had
happened, although he had already sent off word to the nearest
police-station with the names of the guilty men, he took no further
action in the matter. God's punishment was quicker than man's.

[Illustration: THE CAN OF GUNPOWDER TIED TO HIS TAIL]

CHAPTER VIII

Late that afternoon the monkey turned up at his old home. Donald found
him lying at the door, an almost unrecognisable object. Thanks to the
way the robber had carried him, one half of his body was untouched, but
the other half was a pitiable spectacle, and the long curly tail, Gum's
great ornament and plaything, was blown off by the root. The poor
creature had swooned, but that he had lain there an hour or two in great
pain was plain from the way the gravel was tossed about in all
directions round him. Donald was greatly touched, and lifting him up in
his arms as tenderly as if he were a child, placed him in his own bed
and dressed his burns. After a long sleep it awoke, and Donald, who had
sat silently by his side, bent over to allow it to lick his face. The
moment it opened its mouth the miner sprang from his chair as if he had
been shot. For there between his teeth the monkey h