ry stood ready to lead the party to
see the rhinoceros.

"Come, Dinny, aren't you ready?" cried Dick.

"Shure an' I don't want to go, Masther Dick. I seen enough of the baste
last night."

"Yes, but you must come and show us."

"Shure an' Masther Chicory there will lade you to the very spot, and I
couldn't do any more. He lies did bechuckst two big lumps of sthone,
an', as I said, he's as big as a waggin."

"Oh, but Dinny must come," said Mr Rogers.

"Shure an' how will I get the breakfast riddy if I come, sor?" persisted
Dinny. "I did my duty last night. You gintlemen must go and fetch him
home."

But Dinny's protestations passed unheeded, and he had to go with the
party, shouldering his rifle like a raw recruit, but glancing uneasily
to right and left as they went along.

Dick observed this, and said quietly,--

"What a lot of poisonous snakes there are amongst these stones!"

Dinny gave a spasmodic jump, and lifting his feet gingerly, deposited
them in the barest places he could find; and for the rest of the journey
he did not once take his eyes off the ground.

As it happened they had not gone fifty yards farther before they came
upon a great swollen puff-adder, lying right in their path.

Chicory saw it first, and shouted a word of warning, which made Dinny
wheel round, and run away as hard as he could go, till the shouts of the
others brought him back, looking terribly ashamed.

"Oh, it's wan o' thim things, is it?" he said, looking at the writhing
decapitated viper. "Shure I thought it was the jumping sort that
springs up at yer ois, and stings ye before yer know where ye are.
There was a cousin, of me mother's went to live in Hampshire, and she
got bit by wan o' thim bastes in the fut, and it nearly killed her. Ye
can't be too careful."

Dinny felt as if he was being laughed at for the rest of the way, and
looked quite sulky; but the sight of the great fallen tree, and the huge
rhinoceros surrounded by vultures busily working a way through the tough
hide, revived him, and he marched forward to examine his bullet holes
with the look of pride worn by a conqueror.

It was quite refreshing to see him walk up the hind leg of the
rhinoceros, and then along its huge horny-hided body to the shoulder,
where, lowering the rifle he carried, Dinny placed the stock upon the
creature's neck, and rested his arm upon the barrel, regarding his
fallen foe in quite a contemplative manner.

"Mind that rif