“Stop there, you see noseros,” whispered Chicory.
“But shure ye wouldn’t have a man shtand there by himself, and all in the dark? Faix, there’s some wild baste or another shlaying me now.”
“See noseros then shoot,” whispered Chicory. “I stay here.”
The boy caught hold of a branch and swung himself up into a tree, where he perched himself and waited.
“Faix, he’s just like a little monkey, and not fit for the shociety of Christians,” muttered Dinny as he took his place by the great barrier, and, resting his rifle upon the trunk, waited.
Dinny felt in anything but a courageous mood, but as he had come so far upon his mission, he strung himself up to go on with it, and watched the open space before him, lit up by the moon which shone full upon his face.
“Maybe he’s only playing wid me, the black little haythen,” thought Dinny, “and there’s no big pig to be seen here at all. But he shan’t see that I’m a bit freckened annyhow, for I’ll shtand my ground till he comes down and says we’d better go.”
So Dinny stood watching there till he began to feel drowsy, and this made him lean against the great trunk, his head began to nod, and twice over he was pretty well asleep.
“Shure, an’ I’ll catch cowld if I do that,” he said to himself, as he gave himself a bit of a shake. “I don’t see what’s the good o’ waiting here, and—murther! look at that now.”
Dinny felt as if cold water was being poured over him as, all at once, he saw the great proportions of a rhinoceros standing out quite black against the bright moonlight, the animal being as motionless as if carved from the rock that lay in great masses around.