at the
elephants and lions may not have been in the first story. Now I think
of it, I can't recall that they were; but, you see, people wants to
know all about it. They ain't satisfied when I tell 'em that I lived two
years among these chaps. They wants to know how I passed my time, and
whether there were any wild beasts, and a lot of such like questions,
and, in course, I must answer them. So then, you see, naturally,
'bellishments creeps in; but I did live there for two years, that's
gospel truth, and I did go pretty nigh naked, and in winter was pretty
near starved to death over and over again. When the ground was too hard
to dig up roots, and the sea was too rough for the canoes to put out, it
went hard with us, and very often we looked more like living skelingtons
than human beings. Every time a ship came in sight they used to hurry me
away into the woods. I suppose they found me useful, and didn't want to
part with me. At last I got desperate, and made up my mind I'd make a
bolt whatever came of it. They didn't watch me when there were no ships
near. I suppose they thought there was nowhere for me to run to, so one
night I steals down to the shore, gets into a canoe, puts in a lot of
roots which I had dug up and hidden away in readiness, and so makes
off. I rowed hard all night, for I knew they would be after me when they
found I had gone. Them straits is sometimes miles and miles across;
at other times not much more than a ship's length, and the tide runs
through 'em like a mill race. I had chosen a time when I had the tide
with me, and soon after morning I came to one of them narrow places. I
should like to have stopped here, because it would have been handy for
any ship as passed; but the tide run so strong, and the rocks were
so steep on both sides, that I couldn't make a landing. Howsomdever,
directly it widened out, I managed to paddle into the back water and
landed there. Well, gents, would you believe me, if there wasn't two
big allygaters sitting there with their mouths open ready to swallow me,
canoe and all, when I came to shore."

"No, Jack, I'm afraid we can't believe that. We would if we could, you
know, but alligators are not fond of such cold weather as you'd been
having, nor do they frequent the seashore."

"Ah, but this, you see, was a straits, Master Ruthven, just a narrow
straits, and I expect the creatures took it for a river."

"No, no, Jack, we can't swallow the alligators, any more than t