e behind me, and
as I turned I became aware of a face peering out at me from a dense bank
of creepers, as a voice whispered:

"Is your gun loaded, Mas'r Harry?"

"You here, Tom!" I exclaimed.

"Course I am!" said Tom indignantly. "What else did I come out here for
if it wasn't to take care of you? And a nice game you're carrying on--
playing bo-peep with a fellow! Here you are one minute, and I says to
myself, `He won't go out this morning.' Next moment I look round, and
you're gone! But this here sort of thing won't do, sir! If you're
going on like this I shall give notice to leave, or else I shall never
get back alive."

"Why not?" I said, laughing at his anxious face.

"'Cause of these here rambling ways of yours, sir."

"And if I take care, pray what danger is there in them, Tom?"

"Care--care!" echoed Tom. "Why, that's what you don't take, sir. I'm
`Care,' and you leave me at home. You don't say, `Come and look after
me, Tom,' but go on trusting to yourself, while all the time you're like
some one in a dream."

"But what is there to be afraid of, Tom?"

"Sarpints, sir!"

"Pooh, Tom! We can shoot them, eh?--even if they are a hundred feet
long! Well, what else?"

Tom grinned before he spoke.

"Jaggers, sir!"

"Seldom out except of a night, Tom."

"Fevers, sir!"

"Only in the low river-side parts, Tom. We're hundreds of feet above
the river here."

"Snakes in the grass, sir!"

"Pooh, Tom! They always glide off when they hear one coming."

"Not my sort, Mas'r Harry," said Tom in an anxious whisper. "They're a
dangerous sort, with a kind of captain, and he's a half-breed. If you
will have it, and won't listen to reason, you must. Mas'r Harry,
there's snakes in the grass--Indian-looking chaps who watch your every
step, sir. You haven't thought it; but I've always been on the
look-out, and as they've watched you, I've watched them. But they got
behind me to-day, Mas'r Harry, and saw me; and I don't know what to
think--whether Muster Garcia has sent 'em, or whether they think you are
looking for anything of theirs. You don't think it, Mas'r Harry, but at
this very minute they're busy at work watching us."

I started slightly at one of his remarks, but passed it off lightly.

"Pooh, Tom!" I said. "Who's dreaming now?"

"Not me, Mas'r Harry. I was never so wide awake in my life. I tell
you, sir, I've seen you poking and stirring up amongst the sticks and
stones in all so