A NIGHT PROWLER. 199 



Knowing how to secure a prompt and energetic ally, I rose, 

 and knocking on the wall between our rooms, called out to 

 D. that the beast disturbing us was a panther ; and that if he 

 did not wish it to pay a visit to the nursery, he had better 

 turn out sharp and fire at it, D. keeping a loaded revolver 

 in his room. 



After a little whispering and muttering, D.'s powerful 

 and athletic form was heard moving off his bed across his 

 room, and presently five shots were fired rapidly in the 

 direction from which the sawing sounds appeared to come, 

 followed by a complete silence, during which we turned in 

 again, and the reasonably terrified watchman returned thanks- 

 giving for his preservation from what he regarded certain 

 death. 



I think it may have been ten minutes after we lay down, 

 that a great din arose from the south side of the house, in 

 which direction were the kitchen, certain servants' houses, 

 and the poultry yard and house, from which issued loud cries 

 of men, and the quacking and cackling of ducks, geese, and 

 poultry, proving plainly that our friend the sawyer had fallen 

 upon them, after his failure to seize the " Chokeydar." The 

 row made by the servants caused the enterprising intruder 

 to retire after he had killed half-a-dozen ducks and geese 

 and once more we sought repose ; but in vain, for the 

 " sawyer " coming round to my side of the house a few 

 minutes afterwards, serenaded me in his peculiar style, ap- 

 parently from a distance of a few paces beyond the verandah, 

 which ran round the house. Now that the bull had come 

 round to my side of the hedge, I began to feel personally 

 interested, and not desiring a continuance of this sort of a 

 concert, I snatched up a light small-bore rifle which stood in 

 a corner of my room, and slipping in quickly a couple of 

 cartridges, I made for the door which opened upon the veran- 

 dah, and standing in the shadow cast by one of its opened 

 folds, peered out cautiously, hoping to catch a glimpse of my 

 gay and bold troubadour, before he could detect me. The 

 grounds on that side sloped steeply downwards to the bottom 



