KILLING A RACCOON. 189 



drinking its blood. WitK one stroke of my axe the beast was 

 cut in two ; in a few moments I despatched all but the shell. 

 Oh, sir, how much I thanked God, whose kindness had put the 

 tortoise in my way ! I felt greatly renewed. I sat down at the 

 foot of a pine, gazed on the heavens, thought of my poor wife 

 and children, and again and again thanked my God for my life, 

 for now I felt less distracted in mind, and more assured that 

 before long I must recover my way, and get back to my home.' 

 The lost one remained and passed the night at the foot of the 

 same tree under which his repast had been made. Eefreshed 

 by a sound sleep, he started at dawn to resume his weary march. 

 The sun rose bright, and he followed the direction of his 

 shadows. Still the dreariness of the woods was the same, and 

 he was on the point of giving up in despair, when he observed 

 a raccoon lying squatted in the grass, Eaising his axe, he drove 

 it with such violence through the helpless animal, that it 

 expired without a struggle. What he had done with the 

 turtle he now did with the raccoon, the greater part of which he 

 actually devoured at one meal. With more comfortable feel- 

 ings he then resumed his wanderings — ^his journey I cannot say 

 — ^for although in the possession of all his faculties, and in broad 

 daylight, he was worse off than a lame man groping his way in 

 the dark out of a dungeon, of which he knew not where the 

 door stood. Days one after another passed — nay, weeks in 

 succession. He fed now on cabbage trees, then on frogs and 

 snakes. All that fell in his way was welcome and savoury. 

 Yet he became daily more emaciated, and at length he could 

 scarcely crawl ; forty days had elapsed, by his own reckoning, 

 when he at last reached the banks of the river. His clothes in 

 tatters, his once bright axe dimmed with rust, his face begrimed 

 with beard, his hair matted, and his feeble frame little better 

 than a skeleton covered with parchment, there he laid himself 

 down to die. Amid the perturbed dreams of his fevered fancy, 

 he thought he heard the noise of oars far away on the silent 

 river. He listened, but the sounds died away on his ear. It 

 was indeed a dream, the last glimmer of expiring hope, and 

 now the light of life was about to be quenched for ever. But 

 again the sound of oars awoke him from his lethargy. He 

 listened so eagerly that the hum of a fly could not have escaped 



