ayin'
but we may fall in with savages--for them parts swarms with them; so we'd
better go into the woods an'--"

Barney was interrupted here by a low howl, which proceeded from the woods
referred to, and was most unlike any cry they had ever heard before.

"Och, but I'll think better of it. P'raps it'll be as well _not_ to go
into the woods, but to camp where we are."

"I think so too," said Martin, searching about for small twigs and
drift-wood with which to make a fire. "There is no saying what sort of
wild beasts may be in the forest, so we had better wait till daylight."

A fire was quickly lighted by means of the pistol-flint and a little dry
grass, which, when well bruised and put into the pan, caught a spark
after one or two attempts, and was soon blown into a flame. But no wood
large enough to keep the fire burning for any length of time could be
found; so Barney said he would go up to the forest and fetch some. "I'll
lave my shoes and socks, Martin, to dry at the fire. See ye don't let
them burn."

Traversing the meadow with hasty strides, the bold sailor quickly reached
the edge of the forest, where he began to lop off several dead branches
from the trees with his cutlass. While thus engaged the howl which had
formerly startled him was repeated. "Av I only knowed what ye was,"
muttered Barney in a serious tone, "it would be some sort o' comfort."

A loud cry of a different kind here interrupted his soliloquy, and soon
after the first cry was repeated louder than before.

Clenching his teeth and knitting his brows the perplexed Irishman resumed
his work with a desperate resolve not to be again interrupted. But he had
miscalculated the strength of his nerves. Albeit as brave a man as ever
stepped, when his enemy was before him, Barney was, nevertheless,
strongly imbued with superstitious feelings; and the conflict between his
physical courage and his mental cowardice produced a species of wild
exasperation, which, he often asserted, was very hard to bear. Scarcely
had he resumed his work when a bat of enormous size brushed past his nose
so noiselessly that it seemed more like a phantom than a reality. Barney
had never seen anything of the sort before, and a cold perspiration broke
out upon him, when he fancied it might be a ghost. Again the bat swept
past close to his eyes.

"Musha, but I'll kill ye, ghost or no ghost," he ejaculated, gazing all
round into the gloomy depths of the woods with his cutlass