ard. Oliver was attempting to escape; but just then his heel
caught in the root of a tree, which grew at the base of the cliff, and
down he fell, rolling in the sand. His fate appeared to be sealed. I
cried out in terror and alarm. The mias, uttering a shout of mocking
laughter, seemed prepared to throw himself on his victim. At that
instant, as he changed the gun from one hand to the other, apparently
intending to get rid of Merlin before he attacked Oliver, it suddenly
exploded, bursting into twenty fragments, and wounding him severely in
the hands, face, and chest. He uttered a loud scream of anger, but
still advanced. Suddenly, when I thought that my friend's life would be
in an instant more taken from him, the creature fell back to the ground,
where he lay struggling violently, biting the earth and tearing it up
with his claws, while Merlin, evading his clutches, attacked him
wherever he could get a gripe, without risk of being seized, and
prevented him probably from again rising.

"Oh, he is killed! he is killed!" cried Emily, who had hitherto stood
terror-stricken, running to Oliver and kneeling down by him. She heard
the report, and probably thought that he had been wounded by the gun.

"No, no, Miss Emily; do not be alarmed, I am not much hurt," said
Oliver, trying to lift himself up. "The creature only tore my flesh,
and I have sprained my foot in falling. I have been mercifully
preserved."

For some time, however, Emily could scarcely be convinced of the fact.
There lay the monstrous mias, still struggling violently, while Merlin
pertinaciously hung on to him. I had now reached Oliver, and assisted
Emily in supporting him, while we put a safer distance between the
creature and ourselves. Grace, who was far more timid than Emily, had
stood transfixed, as it were, to the ground, unable to advance or fly.
The rest of the party now came up, and a blow from Dick's hatchet
deprived the mias of life.

"I suppose he good for dinner," observed Potto Jumbo, surveying him. "I
cut steak out of him before we go away."

"Out on you for a cannibal!" exclaimed Tarbox, with a look of horror.
"I would as soon think of eating a nigger boy."

"No, no, Massa Tarbox," answered Potto, in an indignant tone. "Nigger
boy got soul. Dis," and he gave the brute a kick with his foot, "just
like hog or cow."

"You may spare yourself the trouble of cutting a steak out of him," said
Roger Trew. "I do not think any of