ken twigs and dry
leaves flying about like a whirlwind, so Snip he jumped up, dropped his
weapon, an' bolted. He never returned to the encampment, and never saw
the big snake or his blunderbuss again."

"What a pity! then he lost it?" said Jerry, looking with some anxiety at
a decayed branch, to which the flickering flame gave apparent motion.

"Yes, he lost the blunderbuss, but he saved his life," replied Dally, as
he lay down near his little friend and drew his blanket over him.
"You'd better put the gun between us, my boy, to be handy to both--an'
if _anything_ comes, the one of us that wakes first can lay hold of it
and fire."

There was, we need scarcely observe, a strong spice of wickedness in
George. If he had suggested a lion, or even an elephant, there would
have been something definite for poor Jerry's anxious mind to lay hold
of and try to reason down and defy, but that dreadful "_anything_" that
might come, gave him nothing to hold by. It threw the whole zoological
ferocities of South Africa open to his unanchored imagination, and for a
long time banished sleep from his eyes.

He allowed the blunderbuss to remain as his friend had placed it, and
hugged the naked bowie-knife to his breast. In addition to these
weapons he had provided himself with a heavy piece of wood, something
like the exaggerated truncheon of a policeman, for the purpose of
killing snakes, should any such venture near his couch.

The wild shrieks of laughter at the neighbouring Hottentot fire helped
to increase Jerry's wakefulness, and when this at last lulled, the
irritation was kept up by the squalling of Master Junkie, whose tent was
about three feet distant from Jerry's pillow, and who kept up a vicious
piping just in proportion to the earnestness of Mrs Scholtz's attempts
to calm him.

At last, however, the child's lamentations ceased, and there broke upon
the night air a sweet sound which stilled the merriment of the natives.
It was the mellow voice of Stephen Orpin singing a hymn of praise, with
a number of like-minded emigrants, before retiring to rest. Doubtless
some of those who had already retired, and lay, perchance, watching the
stars and thinking dreamily of home, were led naturally by the sweet
hymn to think of the home in the "better land," which might possibly be
nearer to some of them than the old home they had left for ever--ay,
even than the new "locations" to which they were bound.

But, whatever the thoug