

CHAPTER XXII. 



PERSEVERANCE REWARDED. 

 A Brave Lad An Unenviable Position Rewarded with Success. 



I DON'T think that there are many European boys 

 who would have accepted the task of going in total 

 darkness into the bowels of the earth, as this youth 

 did, with possibly an infuriated beast at its termina- 

 tion. Yet he seemed to accept it all as a matter of 

 course ; his manner, indeed, indicating that he enjoyed 

 the undertaking as a deuced good lark. There is no 

 accounting for taste, but I suppose that all depends 

 upon education ; for if I missed the maternal parent, 

 or she effected an entrance into the cavern by another 

 route, it is scarcely to be doubted but that she would 

 make it uncommonly hot for the intruder into the 

 sanctity of her nursery. 



Before the Bush-boy entered the den of the 

 caragal I was to receive a signal from the others,. 



