for the last quarter of an hour which induce
me to believe that a rivulet is bridged by the small of my back. Ha!
have you killed him this time?"

The latter remark was addressed to Tom Brown, who had for some time past
been vigorously engaged slapping his own face in the vain hope of
slaying his tormentors--vain, not only because they were too quick to be
caught in that way, but also, because, if slain by hundreds at every
blow, there would still have remained thousands more to come on!

"No," replied Tom, with a touch of bitterness in his tone; "he's not
dead yet."

"He?" exclaimed Wilkins; "do you mean to say that you are troubled by
only _one_ of the vile creatures?"

"Oh no!" said Tom; "there are millions of 'em humming viciously round my
head at this moment, but one of them is so big and assiduous that I have
come to recognise his voice--there! d'you hear it?"

"Hear it!" cried Wilkins; "how can you expect me to hear one of yours
when I am engaged with a host of my own? Ah! but I hear _that_," he
added, laughing, as another tremendous crack resounded from Tom Brown's
cheek; "what a tough skin you must have, to be sure, to stand such
treatment?"

"I am lost in admiration of the amiableness of your temper, Tom,"
remarked the major. "If I were to get such a slap in the face as that,
even from myself, I could not help flying in a passion. Hope the enemy
is defeated at last?"

"I--I--think so," said Tom, in that meditative tone which assures the
listener that the speaker is intensely on the _qui vive_; "yes, I
believe I _have_--eh--no--there he--oh!"

Another pistol-shot slap concluded the sentence, and poor Tom's
companions in sorrow burst into a fit of laughter.

"Let 'im bite, sir," growled the deep bass voice of Hardy, who lay under
a neighbouring wagon; "when he's got his beak well shoved into you, and
begins to suck, he can't get away so quick, 'cause of havin' to pull it
out again! hit out hard and quick then, an' you're sure of him. But the
best way's to let 'em bite, an' go to sleep."

"Good advice; I'll try to take it," said Tom, turning round with a sigh,
and burying his face in the blanket. His companions followed his
example, and in spite of rain and mosquitoes were soon fast asleep.

This wet weather had a very depressing effect on their spirits, and made
the region so unhealthy that it began ere long to tell on the weaker
members of the sporting party; as for the natives, they, being i