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bit. That's all." I shrugged my shoulders. "Ah! you may hyste your shoulders till you skretches your ears with them, Mas'r Harry; but that don't make no better of it. I promised your mother as I'd take care of you and stick to you; but how am I to do that if you get yourself spoiled somehow or other? But, say, Mas'r Harry, was it such a werry big un?" "Was what a very big one?" I said wonderingly. "Why, the sarpint--it might have been a sea-sarpint, for nobody seemed to believe in it." "Yes," I said moodily, "an enormous beast." "And he got it pretty hot from the tiger thing?" "You saw the blood about, and now hold your tongue." "But I ain't done yet, Mas'r Harry," said Tom eagerly. "That there Don wouldn't believe in it, and we knowed that it went into that brake. What do you say to going up to the house, getting the guns, and then shooting the beast and skinning him; so as to show them that English lads don't go bouncing and swelling about without they've got something to bounce and swell about?" There was something in Tom's project that interested me, and I turned to him with eagerness. Adventure--something to prove that I had been no boaster, something to divert the current of my thoughts; it was the very thing, but I said gloomily the next minute: "We should be too late, Tom; the beast must have taken to the river." "All wounded beasts make to the water, Mas'r Harry," said Tom; "but we don't know that we should be too late. What I say is--Let's try." "Come along then," I cried. We walked up to the hacienda, encountering Garcia on the portal, ready to bestow upon us both a sneering grin as we again issued forth, each carrying a double gun loaded with buck-shot. I don't think we, either of us, stopped to consider whether it was prudent to run the risk before us, with a very problematic chance of success; but hurrying back regardless of the sun, we soon stood once more by the fallen tree, and began to follow the beaten track left by the contending enemies till we reached the great brake by the river-side, when for the first time we turned and looked at each other. "Oh! it's all right, Mas'r Harry," said Tom; "and if he's in here we'll soon rouse him out." For it was evident that he had interpreted the doubt that had found a home in my mind. "You think it will be here still?" I said. "Sartain, Mas'r Harry; and--hist! don't speak above a whisper. He's in there, sure enough
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