100 GABRIEL IN A SCRAPE. [chap. it. 



the Damaras were thronging round us and teasing us a 

 great deal, I was in much alarm lest some imprudence 

 of the lad's should give them a pretext for an attack. 

 If fighting had once commenced, we should have been 

 as fall of assegais as St. Sebastian ever was of arrows, 

 and our guns would have availed but little. Just at 

 this time, as we were all squatting in a ring, except 

 Hans and John St. Helena, who were a Httle to one 

 side and out of the way, some hungry native dogs paid 

 our saddlebags a visit, and gnawed at the leather. 

 Gabriel took a rhinoceros-hide whip to frighten them 

 off, and one snarled, but retreated to his master through 

 the middle of the ring. Gabriel rushed, quite daft, 

 after the dog, and gave a tremendous slash with the 

 long supple whip at him, but he quite over-reached his 

 aim, and the chief got the benefit of the cut full on his 

 legs. Another instant and Gabriel was jDrostrate, 

 while the chief, like a wild beast, glared over him ; the 

 muscle of every Damara was on the stretch. Every 

 man had his assegai. My gun lay by my side, but I 

 had sense enough not to clutch at it. I tried with all 

 my power to look as steady and unconcerned as I could, 

 and I must partly thank the sun which had baked my 

 face into a set expression, for success. It was a fear- 

 fully anxious time to me, though it lasted but for a 

 moment ; gradually the savage's grasp relaxed, the 

 Damaras around fell back into nonchalant attitudes, 

 and at length the ferocious expression of the chiefs 

 face somewhat smoothed down, and he rose and 

 allowed the disconcerted Gabriel to sneak off, but kept 

 the whip as a trophy, and possibly as a memento of 



