ut what a man to have about the place! I ought to
have bullied him well; but I can't go near him again. I wish I had not
shown the white feather so."

Ten minutes later Nic had forgotten his adventure, as he lay there upon
his chest close to the edge, gazing down from the Bluff into the
tremendous gully, rapt in amazement by its wonders, fascinated by its
beauties. He stayed for hours tracing the river, and as his eyes grew
more accustomed to the depth he made out the animals grazing below and
looking like ants.

"Yes, it is glorious!" he said at last; and he turned his head to look
around and rest his eyes upon the green on the other side, when he felt
as if turned to stone. He had escaped one danger, and another seemed to
have sprung up, for peering out at him from a dense patch of grass was a
black face with glittering eyes and a surrounding of shaggy hair, while
the gun was lying between them, and just beyond his reach.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

A FRIGHT.

The position was startling in the extreme, and all the tales he had
heard on shipboard and at home, as well as in the letters he had
received from his sisters, respecting the blacks, flashed into his mind.
He knew how dangerous they were, and the enmity some of them bore
toward the white invaders of their shores; and though he could see
nothing but the man's face, he felt certain that, hidden by the grass,
the black would have his spear with its hardened point--a weapon these
men could throw as unerringly as the peculiar boomerang which would be
stuck in his waistband to balance the deadly nulla-nulla--the
melon-shaped club carved from a hard-wood root, whose stem formed the
handle.

And as these thoughts ran through Nic's mind he kept his eyes fixed upon
the bright dark eyes of the black, every nerve upon the strain, every
muscle strung, and ready for action. For in those painful moments Nic
had determined to "die game," as he called it in schoolboy parlance,
living as he did in days when a brutal sport was popular. At the first
movement made by the black Nic meant to spring upon his gun, and have
one shot for his life; but he remained motionless, trying to stare the
man down, and in the faint hope that Leather might come back, and the
black shrink from attacking one who faced him.

"Wild beasts shrink away, so why should not wild men?" thought Nic.

And so they lay there each upon his chest, watching one another, Nic
having a fine opportunity for s