aring expletives,
threatened to gouge his eyes out if he did not keep quiet.

"You go on, doctor," he said cheerfully. "I'll let you know in the
course of an hour or two how Mrs. Armitage and the boy are progressing.
The seat which I am now occupying, though not a very honourable one,
considering the material of which it is composed, is very comfortable
for the time being; and"--he turned and glared savagely at Armitage's
purpled face--"You sweep! I have a great inclination to let Eckhardt
come and boot the life out of you whilst I hold you down, you brute!"

"I'll kill you for this," said Armitage hoarsely.

"Won't give you the chance, my boy. And if you don't promise to go to
your room quietly, I'll call in the native servants, sling you up like
the pig you are to a pole, and have you carried into Apia, where you
stand a good show of being lynched. I've had enough of you. Every
one--except your blackguardly acquaintances in Matafele--would be glad
to hear that you were dead, and your wife and child freed from you."

Eckhardt stepped forward. "Let him up, Mr. Denison."

The supercargo obeyed the request.

"Just as you please, doctor. But I think that he ought to be put in
irons, or a strait-jacket, or knocked on the head as a useless beast. If
it were not for Mrs. Armitage and her little son, I would like to kill
the sweep. His treatment of that poor fellow Amona, who is so devoted to
the child, has been most atrocious."

Eckhardt grasped the supercargo's hand as Armitage shambled off "He's a
brute, as you say, Mr. Denison. But she has some affection for him. For
myself, I would like to put a bullet through him."

Within three months Mrs. Armitage was dead, and a fresh martrydom began
for poor Amona. But he and the child had plenty of good friends; and
then, one day, when Armitage awakened to sanity after a long drinking
bout, he found that both Amona and the child had gone.

Nearly a score of years later Denison met them in an Australian city.
The "baby" had grown to be a well-set-up young fellow, and Amona the
faithful was still with him--Amona with a smiling, happy face. They came
down on board Denison's vessel with him, and "the baby" gave him, ere
they parted, that faded photograph of his dead mother.

THE SNAKE AND THE BELL

When I was a child of eight years of age, a curious incident occurred in
the house in which our family lived. The locality was Mosman's Bay, one
of the many picturesque