said. "Blest if the place don't
look just like the inside of one of them big hyster-shells that they get
the pearls out of!"

"Hush!" said Archie softly.

"Mum!" said Peter. "I forgot; but don't it look as if the river was
boiling hot and the steam rising, and the fire that hots it was shining
up through the cloud? I say, nobody could hear me say that," he
whispered.

"I hope not; but for aught we know boats may be floating down, hidden by
that mist."

"Mist--of course, sir! But it do look like steam, and it makes me think
of rations and hot coffee. I say, if one feels like this just at
daybreak, how's it going to be by night? Here goes to tighten my belt."

Peter suited the action to his words, and moved the tongue of his buckle
up two holes.

After this the lad sat peering through a dense, green curtain of the
beautiful tropic leafage, till by degrees all the mist had floated away
with the stream, leaving the water glittering and sparkling in the
bright sunshine, and giving the watchers a clear view of the flowing
river and the jungle that bowed its pendent branches so that they kissed
the water, while farther on tall, rigid palms shot up and displayed
their feathery tufts of great leaves, to sway gently in the hot
sunshine.

"Let's see, Mister Archie; don't seem to be many paths where helephants
and things come down to drink. I don't believe if we were landed there
we could get through those woods. I wonder what makes them call them
jungles. I suppose it means because the trees are all junged up
together so that you can't get through. If they called it tangle
there'd be some sense in it. But that ain't the worst."

"What is, then, Pete?" replied Archie, speaking so that his companion in
misfortune should not think him surly and distant.

"Why, we have got to carry them four little chesties and the gun right
through it in the dark. Well, we've got 'em, sir, and that's what we
come for."

"Yes, Pete; and it will be a relief to get them to the Residency."

"Yes, sir; and we have got to do it; and that means we shall, somehow."

The lad ceased speaking, and bent down to shift the four square,
solid-looking boxes a little, and as he did so he uttered a low grunt.

"I say, sir, it's been so dark that we couldn't tell what we were doing,
but lookye here. These 'ere two bottom ones are standing right in the
water. It's to be hoped they are tin-lined, or else what about the
cartridges? What do