a few minutes the dry leaves and grass first collected caught
fire, then the twigs, and soon a good glowing fire was burning.

The bread and butter and bottle of milk were stood on one side, and
close by them there was a peculiar noise made by the unhappy cray-fish
which were tied up in Bob's neckerchief, from which the bread had been
released.

"Going to cook 'em!" he said; "in course I am. Wait a bit and I'll show
yer. I say! this is something like a place, ain't it!"

Dexter agreed that it was, for it was a sylvan nook which a lover of
picnics would have considered perfect, the stream ran swiftly by, a few
yards away the stony bank rose up, dotted with patches of brown furze
and heath, nearly perpendicularly above their heads, and on either side
they were shut in by trees and great mossy stones.

The fire burned brightly, and sent up clouds of smoke, which excited
dread in Dexter's breast for a few moments, but the fear was forgotten
directly in the anticipation of the coming feast, in preparation for
which Bob kept on adding to the central flame the burnt-through pieces
of dead wood, while Dexter from time to time fetched more from the ample
store beneath the trees, and broke them off ready for his chief.

"What are you going to do, Bob!" he said at last.

"Going to do? You want to know too much."

"Well, I'm so hungry."

"Well, I'll tell yer. I'm going to roast them cray-fish, that's what
I'm going to do."

"How are you going to kill them!"

"Going to kill 'em? I ain't going to kill 'em."

"But you won't roast them alive."

"Won't I? Just you wait till there's plenty of hot ashes and you'll
see."

Dexter had made pets of so many creatures that he shrank from inflicting
pain, and he looked on at last with something like horror as Bob untied
his kerchief, shot all the cray-fish out on the heathy ground, and then,
scraping back the glowing embers with his foot till he had left a bare
patch of white ash, he rapidly thrust in the captives, which began to
hiss and steam and whistle directly.

The whistling noise might easily have been interpreted to mean a cry of
pain, but the heat was so great that doubtless death was instantaneous,
and there was something in what the boy said in reply to Dexter's
protests.

"Get out! It don't hurt 'em much."

"But you might have killed them first."

"How was I to kill 'em first?" snarled Bob, as he sat tailor fashion and
poked the cray-fish into warmer pla