stretched on the ground, his leg caught in a vine
below a tall tree with branches coming close to the ground. The
dreadful thought seized me that he was dead.

"Tom, Mr Tubbs, speak to me," I cried out I heard a groan. At all
events, he was alive. Stooping down, I rested his head on my knee.
Charley and Harry quickly came up. We soon released poor Tom's foot.
On examining it, we feared that it was dislocated, or at all events
severely sprained, and that probably he had fainted from the pain.
Having water in our flasks, we poured some down his throat. By wetting
his hands and chafing his arms we in a short time brought him to. He
looked round him, evidently very much astonished.

"Where am I, mates? What has happened?" he asked at length. "I was
dreaming that a shark or a tiger or some beast or other had bitten off
my foot."

"Not so bad as that," said Charley, "although you have hurt it
considerably, I fear."

"Ah, now I recollect all about it. I was afraid, Mr Westerton, that
you were caught by the elephants, and I was expecting to share the same
fate. As I could not help you, I thought the wisest thing I could do
was to run for my life. I confess it, I never was in such a fright
before. I somehow dropped my gun, and then, just as I was about to
climb up into that tree overhead, I found myself caught with a round
turn about my leg, and down I came. The honest truth is, I don't
remember anything more of what happened after that."

It would have been unjust to blame poor Tom for the very natural panic
which had seized him on finding himself alone in the forest, and, as he
supposed, with his companions killed. He had acted as most people would
have done under similar circumstances, and endeavoured to save his life.
We fortunately found not far off just such an open space as we were
searching for. Our first business was to light a fire in the centre of
it, after having cut away the surrounding grass.

"We must keep up a good blare, or we may have some unwelcome visits from
wild beasts," said Charley. "It will be necessary to keep an eye
towards the lake, or one of those horrid crocodiles may be crawling up
in search of some supper when the odour of the roasted elephant-meat
reaches his nose."

While Charley and I attended to poor Tom, Harry and Aboh made up the
fire as proposed. We had brought an iron saucepan, with which Aboh
intimated that he would go down to the lake to get some water, making a