ant
change if you can supply the cook."

"But it's too dark for fishing," said Brace.

"Better chance of catching something," said the captain. "But that
isn't fish; that's something fishing."

There was no need for the captain to draw attention to the fact, for
those near him were straining their eyes towards the shore, from which a
strange beating and splashing sound arose, but apparently from beyond
the black bank of trees formed by the edge of the forest.

"There must be a lake on the other side of the bank," said Brace
eagerly.

"No," replied the captain; "only one of the creeks that run inland among
the trees. Come, do you know what that is?"

"It sounds like an alligator splashing about in shallow water," replied
Brace.

"You've hit it first time, squire. It's a big one lashing about with
its tail to stun the fish so that they float up ready for his meal.
That's right, isn't it, Mr Briscoe?"

"Quite," said the American. "I've seen them doing it in the Mississippi
swamps; but they were only small ones, five or six feet long. This one
sounds as if it were a thumper."

"Yes," said Sir Humphrey, "I suppose there are monsters in these waters.
Ah!" he continued, as the splashing grew louder; "that sounds like a
warning to us not to think of bathing while we are up the river."

"Bathing!" cried the captain. "I should think not. You can't do it
here, sir, for, besides alligators and different kinds of pike, these
waters swarm with small fish that are always savagely hungry. The big
ones are plentiful enough, but the little ones go in shoals and are as
ready to attack as the others, and they have teeth like lancets, so take
care."

The splashing ceased, and this seemed to be the signal for fresh sounds
to arise both up and down the river and from the forest depths on either
bank, till the night seemed to be alive with a strange chorus, which, as
Brace and his companions listened, culminated in a tremendous crash,
followed by a dead silence.

"Whatever is that?" whispered Brace.

"Big tree tumbled," said Briscoe carelessly.

"But there is no wind--there was no lightning."

"No," said the American, "but it had to tumble some time. You often
hear that in the woods: they go on growing and growing for hundreds of
years, and then they stop from old age and overgrowth, and begin to rot
and rot, till all at once, night or day, the top's too heavy for the
bottom, and down they come. We'll go and have