“‘Well?’ said I, looking at his drawn face.
“‘Unless,’ he said, ‘I forestall him.’
“‘No my lad,’ said I, ‘for that would be a sin, and when you are stronger this dream of yours will go.’
“He looked so fallen in, so weak, all of a sudden, that I took him for a walk to the river, and the rush of the waters seemed to comfort him. He sat on a big boulder looking across, and the whiteness presently went from his cheeks.
“‘I’ve got an idea,’ he said, ‘if I could reach the other side I’d be all right again.’
“We sat there in a sort of a dream for an hour or two, when I happened to look round, and right there on the flat of the ground was stretched out the biggest and the ugliest snake I ever saw, black as night, with a great vicious diamond-shaped head, and a pair of eyes that glowed all colours. He looked as if he’d travelled; his scales, instead of being glossy, were dull with scratches here and there, and his skin had a sort of bagginess as if he hadn’t eaten for weeks. As soon as he saw me turn he raised his head about five feet from the ground, and from his eyes there shot a look that jest kept me fixed like a stone. Then that poor young feller on the stone began to speak again, in a soft way, of the river and its journey to the sea.
“‘I wish,’ he said, ‘I could look on the sea again.’ Then I heard him move, and I knew he was looking into the eyes of his enemy, for that snake began to sway his head to and fro, to and fro, while his tail went twisting in and out, sending his body nearer and nearer. Suddenly there was a shriek, and a splash, and the snake went by me—streamed over the rock into the water, and when I leapt to my feet with a yell that startled the whole camp, I saw an arm thrust above the yeller flood, and above the arm the bend of that black snake, his head turned down looking into the water, and a coil of his body round the elbow. Ole Abe Pike has swound away once, and that was the time. Yes; there was his black body gleaming with the water on it, and his head turned towards the face of the enemy—that poor young chap he had follered over three countries for one thousand miles—one thousand English miles.”
“That a true story, Uncle Abe?”
“Ain’t I told it? That’s why I gave up transport riding. I darsn’t go near that Orange River again.”