Book Three—Chapter Four.
In African Wilds—Adventure with a Lion.
A little way down the hill, and looking towards the north, was a cave in the rocks, and a cool delightful corner our friends found it, soon as the sun “got some weigh” on him, and his beams no longer slanted over the plain.
While Raggy was eating his modest breakfast Harry went some distance apart, and, taking out a little Book—it was a gift from his mother—he read a portion where a leaf was turned down.
Seems funny that a boy should carry a Bible with him, does it not? Well, reader, I can tell you this much: I have known many and many a sailor boy do so, and I never found that they were a bit the worse for it.
Mind you this, I have no patience with superstition, and I do hate cant; nor do I for a moment mean to say that our Book acts as a kind of amulet: but putting the matter in a plain, practical, common sense kind of a way, you and I have both immortal souls, you know, and we want to be guided how to save them. Well, the Book tells us the way. But that is not all. In times of danger—and a sailor comes across these pretty often—a blink into the Bible often gives a fellow heartening. You open it probably at the very passage that does so, and, even if you do not, you know where to find such passage.
And this does do good. Oh! I have proved it over and over again. I have a little old Book there that I have carried about the world for years and years. It has many a dog’s-ear, but they are intentional, for each one marks a passage, and to every dog’s-ear a story is attached. All point to little crumbs of comfort I have had in scenes of danger or even pestilence—here and there in many lands. Some day, if spared, I mean to write the story of this particular old Book of mine, and I do not think it will be devoid of interest to those who may care to peruse it.
But there! I am digressing, and I humbly beg my readers pardon; it was all owing to Harry’s getting away, in behind that bit of tangled scrub, in order to perform his morning devotions. Well, the truth is he did feel very, very grateful to be free.