r to me, and utterly
unnerve me if any real difficulty should call for presence of mind.
You must be content to leave me in the hands of Providence, and allow
me to judge what becomes a man, and what results are worth the risks
they may involve. I hear Ergimo's step on deck, and I must go and
learn from him what arrangements he has been able to make for
to-morrow."

My escort had found no difficulty in providing for the fulfilment of
both my wishes. We were to beat the forests which covered the southern
seabord in the neighbourhood, driving our game out upon the open
ground, where alone we should have a chance of securing it. By noon we
might hope to have seen enough of this sport, and to find ourselves at
no great distance from that part of the inland sea where a yet more
exciting chase was to employ the rest of the day. Failing to bring
both adventures within the sixteen hours of light which at this season
and in this latitude we should enjoy, we were to bivouac for the night
on the northern sea-coast and pursue our aquatic game in the morning
of the morrow, returning before dark to our vessel.

Ergimo, however, was more of Eveena's mind than of mine. "I have
complied," he said, "with your wishes, as the Campta ordered me to do.
But I am equally bound, by his orders and by my duty, to tell you that
in my opinion you are running risks altogether out of proportion to
any object our adventure can serve. Scarcely any of the creatures we
shall hunt are other than very formidable. Eyen the therne, with the
spikes on its fore-limbs, can inflict painful if not dangerous wounds,
and its bite is said to be not unfrequently venomous. You are not used
to our methods of hunting, to the management of the _caldecta_, or to
the use of our weapons. I can conceive no reason why you should incur
what is at any rate a considerable chance, not merely of death, but of
defeating the whole purpose of your extraordinary journey, simply to
do or to see the work on which we peril only the least valuable lives
among us."

I was about to answer him even more decidedly than I had replied to
Eveena, when a pressure on my arm drew my eyes in the other direction;
and, to my extreme mortification, I perceived that Eveena herself, in
all-absorbing eagerness to learn the opinion of an intelligent and
experienced hunter, had stolen on deck and had heard all that had
passed. I was too much vexed to make any other reply to Ergimo's
argument than the si