li_ and swift messengers sent his villages to the search.
Every half-hour the Hotchkiss gun of the _Zaire_ banged noisily; and
Hamilton, tramping through the woods, felt his heart sink as hour after
hour passed without news of his comrade.

"I tell you this, lord," said the headman, who accompanied him, "that I
think Tibbetti is dead and the child also. For this wood is filled with
ghosts and savage beasts, also many strong and poisonous snakes. See,
lord!" He pointed.

They had reached a clearing where the grass was rich and luxuriant,
where overshadowing branches formed an idealic bower, where heavy white
waxen flowers were looped from branch to branch holding the green boughs
in their parasitical clutch. Hamilton followed the direction of his
eyes. In the middle of the clearing a long, sinuous shape, dark brown,
and violently coloured with patches of green and vermillion, that was
swaying backward and forward, hissing angrily at some object before it.

"Good God!" said Hamilton, and dropped his hand on his revolver, but
before it was clear of his holster, there came a sharp crack, and the
snake leapt up and fell back as a bullet went snip-snapping through the
undergrowth. Then Hamilton saw Bones. Bones in his shirtsleeves,
bareheaded, his big pipe in his mouth, who came hurriedly through the
trees pistol in hand.

"Naughty boy!" he said, reproachfully, and stooping, picked up a
squalling brown object from the ground. "Didn't Daddy tell you not to
go near those horrid snakes? Daddy spank you----"

Then he caught sight of the amazed Hamilton, clutched the baby in one
hand, and saluted with the other.

"Baby present and correct, sir," he said, formally.

* * * * *

"What are you going to do with it?" asked Hamilton, after Bones had
indulged in the luxury of a bath and had his dinner.

"Do with what, sir?" asked Bones.

"With this?"

Hamilton pointed to a crawling morsel who was at that moment looking up
to Bones for approval.

"What do you expect me to do, sir?" asked Bones, stiffly; "the mother is
dead and he has no father. I feel a certain amount of responsibility
about Henry."

"And who the dickens is Henry?" asked Hamilton.

Bones indicated the child with a fine gesture.

"Henry Hamilton Bones, sir," he said grandly. "The child of the
regiment," he went on; "adopted by me to be a prop for my declining
years, sir."

"Heaven and earth!" said Hamilton, breathlessly.