, who used to perambulate the shores of Crete, an early
mythical coast-guard. HUGH's step on the mountain was like that of the
red deer, and he had an eye like the eagle's of his native wastes.

[Illustration: "I had been bitten by an Adder."]

It was not pleasant, marching beside HUGH, and I was often anxious
to sit down and admire the scenery, if he would have let me. I
had no rifle of my own, but one was lent me, with all the latest
improvements, confound them! Well, we staggered through marshes, under
a blinding sun, and clambered up cliffs, and sneaked in the beds of
burns, and crawled through bogs on our stomachs. My only intervals
of repose were when HUGH lay down on his back, and explored the
surrounding regions with his field-glass. Even then I was not allowed
to smoke, and while I was baked to a blister with the sun, I was wet
through with black peat water. Never a deer could we see, or could
HUGH see, rather, for I am short-sighted, and cannot tell a stag from
a bracken bush.

At last HUGH, who was crawling some yards ahead, in an uninteresting
plain, broken by a few low round hillocks, beckoned to me to come on.
I writhed up to him, where he lay on the side of one of those mounds,
when he put the rifle in my hand, whispering "Shoot!"

"Shoot what?" said I, for my head was not yet above the crest of the
hillock. He only made a gesture, and getting my eye-glass above the
level, I saw quite a lot of deer, stags, and hinds, within fifty yards
of us. They were interested, apparently, in a party of shepherds,
walking on a road which crossed the moor at a distance, and had no
thoughts to spare for us. "Which am I to shoot?" I whispered.

"The big one, him between the two hinds to the left." I took deadly
aim, my heart beating audibly, like a rusty pump in a dry season.
My hands were shaking like aspen leaves, but I got the sight on him,
under his shoulder, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened, I pulled
the trigger of the second barrel. Nothing occurred. "Ye have the
safety-bolts in," whispered HUGH, and he accommodated that portion of
the machinery, which I do not understand. Was all this calculated to
set a man at his ease? I took aim afresh, pulled the trigger again.
Nothing! "Ye're on half-cock," whispered HUGH, adding some remark in
Gaelic, which, of course, I did not understand. Was it my fault? It
was not my own rifle, I repeat, and the hammers, at half-cock, looked
as high as those of my gun, full-c