forward like a huge cat, with
its powerful fore-arm just catching the youngster's leg, scoring deeply
into the flesh, and tearing off the light shoe. The wounds were
bandaged, and Ensign Harris's name placed on the sick list.

"Good-night, Hughes, and a pleasant journey to you," said Curtis, as the
two shook hands at the entrance of the compound.

The air was fresh and cool, the "Southern Cross" was just dipping
towards the distant horizon, the long mournful howl of a far-away hyena
came across the plain, and on the white dusty road stood the
dark-looking palanquin, with its group of dusky bearers, as, wringing
his brother officer's hand, Captain Hughes stepped into it, and with a
sing-song chaunt the palkywallers shouldered their burden, and moved
away on the first stage, which was to lead to the broad plains and
well-stocked prairies of that Shikaree's heaven, the hunting-fields of
South Africa.

Volume 1, Chapter II.

THE "HALCYON" BRIG.

"Sail ho!" shouted the look-out in the foretop of the merchant brig, the
"Halcyon," one fine afternoon, some three months after, the events
related in the preceding chapter.

The sun was just setting in the western horizon, tinging the trembling
waves with a golden hue. The brig was making good weather of it, and
she looked a likely craft to do so. Her long, low, black hull supported
a pyramid of white canvas, every sail drawing to a nicety, as, with a
fresh breeze right over the quarter, she held her course to the
northward and westward, bound for the coast of Africa. Three men only
were pacing her quarter-deck. The one, a middle-sized, stout built man,
his face tanned to the colour of mahogany, was evidently the master of
the brig. The second, much younger, was his first mate; while leaning
over the bulwarks, lazily looking into the sea, a solitary passenger,
who had been taken on board when the brig lay in Madras roads, completed
the trio. Forward, on the forecastle, was a group of sailors, thrown
here and there under the weather bulwarks, some asleep, some telling
tales of former adventures in the land now a hundred miles away on the
brig's larboard bow, and which they hoped to sight in the morning.

"Sail ho!" shouted the look-out, and Captain Weber stopped suddenly in
his walk, turning to windward, his long grey hair streaming out on the
breeze as he did so. His was the seaman's face of the old type. The
forehead low and massive; the thick eyebrows overshadow