ced on the bush which acted for
a chair back, while the morning air struck chill to the bare skin.

"It's horrid," he thought,--"horrid. How can one go on like this?"

Ugh! how cold the black water looked in that grey dawn, for there was no
sign of the sun, the stars being still faintly visible, and to keep his
teeth from chattering Nic set them so hard that they began to ache.

"Pretty cowardly fool I should have looked if father had asked me at
breakfast if--Bother it all. Why didn't I take off my shoes?"

Nic had got one leg half out of his trousers, but not being so clever as
the black at that crane or stork-like way of standing he overbalanced,
tried to save himself failed, and went down on his side, in which safer
position he dragged out first one and then the other leg.

"Yes; pretty cowardly fellow I should have looked if father had asked me
at breakfast if I enjoyed my swim."

He rose and hung up his trousers on the bush, thrust off shoes and
stockings, and then stood on the bank white and ghostly-looking, gazing
down into the deep, still water overhung by thick bushes, which made it
look still more untempting. For it was big enough--there were two or
three acres--to hold any number of terrible monsters. There might be
water-serpents hidden under those overhanging trees, waiting amongst the
roots ready to seize and pull him down; or huge alligators or crocodiles
might be lurking in the deepest holes. Nic was not learned enough as to
the way in which their teeth fitted between the others or into holes in
the opposing jaws to know which was which. It was enough for him to
remember that they were shaped like the fierce little efts which seized
the worms in ponds at home when he had been out fishing.

The thoughts were horrible, and he stood shivering, and had it been
broad daylight his skin would have been seen becoming covered with tiny
pimples, like the cuticle of the goose plucked, and assuming a reddish,
purply hue.

"Oh," he thought, "if I could only escape this bitter task!" But he was
too determined to attempt that, though he could not help putting off the
task as long as he could; for cold water which looks bad enough at dawn
in a bath in a comfortable dressing-room seems far worse on the banks of
a river; and a hundred times worse when an active brain suggests the
possibility of its containing fierce, hungry reptiles in all their
amphibious horror, watching and waiting, in a land of blacks,