es, he reproduced the habits of
that epoch when man roosted, and was arboreal. Wheel somersaults, and,
above all, swinging head downwards from a branch, were the sweeteners of
his existence.

"Oh! YOU are there, are you?" said Dick.

"Iss," said Ucatella. "Tim good boy. Tim found my child."

"Well," said Dick, "he has chosen a nice place. This is the clump the
last lion came out of, at least they say so. For my part, I never saw
an African lion; Falcon says they've all took ship, and gone to England.
However, I shall stay here with my rifle till daybreak. 'Tis tempting
Providence to lie down on the skirt of a wood for Lord knows what to
jump out on ye unawares."

Tim was sent home for Hottentots, and Christopher was carried home,
still sleeping, and laid on his own bed.

He slept twenty-four hours more, and, when he was fairly awake, a sort
of mist seemed to clear away in places, and he remembered things at
random. He remembered being at sea on the raft with the dead body;
that picture was quite vivid to him. He remembered, too, being in the
hospital, and meeting Phoebe, and every succeeding incident; but as
respected the more distant past, he could not recall it by any effort
of his will. His mind could only go into that remoter past by material
stepping-stones; and what stepping-stones he had about him here led him
back to general knowledge, but not to his private history.

In this condition he puzzled them all strangely at the farm; his mind
was alternately so clear and so obscure. He would chat with Phoebe, and
sometimes give her a good practical hint; but the next moment, helpless
for want of memory, that great faculty without which judgment cannot
act, having no material.

After some days of this, he had another great sleep. It brought him back
the distant past in chapters. His wedding-day. His wife's face and dress
upon that day. His parting with her: his whole voyage out: but, strange
to say, it swept away one-half of that which he had recovered at his
last sleep, and he no longer remembered clearly how he came to be at
Dale's Kloof.

Thus his mind might be compared to one climbing a slippery place, who
gains a foot or two, then slips back; but on the whole gains more than
he loses.

He took a great liking to Falcon. That gentleman had the art of
pleasing, and the tact never to offend.

Falcon affected to treat the poor soul's want of memory as a common
infirmity; pretended he was himself very often