as Jack suddenly levelled his
piece.

"Why not?" he said in an ill-used tone. "I daresay they're poison and
they ain't no good."

The object that had been his aim was an ash-grey snake, rather short and
thick of form, which lay coiled into the figure of a letter S, and held
its head a few inches from the rock on which it lay.

"If you wish to kill the little vipers do it with a stick, my lad.
Every charge of powder may prove very valuable, and be wanted in an
emergency."

"I say," said Jack Penny, dropping the butt of his piece on the rock,
leaning his arms upon it, and staring at the speaker. "You don't think
we are likely to have a fight soon, do you?"

"I hope not," said the doctor; "but we shall have to be always on the
alert, for in a land like this we never know how soon danger may come."

"I say, Jack," I whispered, "do you want to go back?"

"No: I don't want to go back," he said with a snort. "I don't say I
ain't afraid. P'r'aps I am. I always thought our place lonely, but it
was nothing to these parts, where there don't seem to be no living
people at all."

"Well, let's get on," said the doctor, smiling; and we threaded our way
as well as we could amongst the chaotic masses of stones till we were
stopped short by a complete crack in the stony earth, just as if the
land had been dragged asunder.

As we stood on the brink of the chasm, and gazed down at the bottom some
hundred feet below, we could see that it was a wild stony place, more
sterile than that we had traversed. In places there were traces of
moisture, as if water sometimes trickled down, and where this was the
case I could see that ferns were growing pretty freely, but on the whole
the place was barrennesss itself.

It seemed to have a fascination though for Jack Penny, who sat down on
the edge and dangled his long legs over the rock, amusing himself by
throwing down pieces of stone on to larger pieces below, so as to see
them shatter and fall in fragments.

"Snakes!" he said suddenly. "Look at 'em. See me hit that one." He
pitched down a large piece of stone as he spoke, and I saw something
glide into a crevice, while another reptile raised itself up against a
piece of rock and fell back hissing angrily.

We were so high up that I could not tell how big these creatures were,
but several that we noticed must have been six or seven feet long, and
like many vipers of the poisonous kinds, very thick in proportion.

I daresay w