The country they traversed now, though a hilly and fertile one, was, strange to say, deserted.
Still, this is not so strange when we remember that in all probability it has been depopulated by the Arab slaver. Indeed, many parts of the forest gave evidence of having been ravished by fire.
Bravery, I take it, is not a very uncommon quality in the human breast of any inhabitant of our British islands, yet he is the bravest man who knows his danger and still does not fear to face it. In the matter of danger, where ignorance is bliss ’tis folly to be wise. Your first-voyage sailor will retain his presence of mind and coolness, at times when old seafarers are pale with the coldness of a coming evil. Why? Because he does not know the worst. This is not bravery. It is—nothing.
If, however, one is so positioned as to know there is danger, but remains in ignorance as to its amount or extent, then he has a bold heart who can quietly meet or court it. I have hinted before in this tale of mine that I claim for my wayward boy, Harry, no extraordinary qualities of mind, and that he had his faults just as you have, reader; so now I need not apologise for him when I confess to you that in the wild African jungle there were many times that his heart beat high with fear. Especially was this so at first. All bold, brave natures are finely strung and sensitive. Harry’s was. He did not like the dangers of the darkness, and he dreaded snakes. At the commencement, then, of his wanderings on the dark continent he expected to see one whenever a bunch of grass quivered or moved, though only a mole might have been at the bottom of it. And I believe at night he heard sounds and saw sights in the bush and on the plains, that had no existence except in his own fervid imagination.
However, a month or two of nomad life hardened him. He noticed that even serpents do not go out of their way to bite people, and that you have only to observe a certain amount of caution, then you may put your hands in your pockets and whistle.
As far as that goes, I believe you might put your hands in your pockets and go whistling up to a lion “on the roam.” My illustrious countryman, the great General Gordon, did this or something very like it once. I would not, nor would I advise you to do so, reader; but I have to say, as regards my hero, Harry, that familiarity bred in him a contempt for danger that led him to grief.
I will tell you the story after making just one remark. It is this—and happy I would be this minute if I thought you would lay it to heart and remember it. We are apt to pray to our Father to keep us from evil, and then, when something occurs to us, some accident, perhaps, turn round and murmur and say—
“Oh! my prayers have not been heard. God loves me not.”
How know you, I ask, that He in His mercy has not allowed this little misfortune to befall us in order to save us from a greater?
Harry was carelessly walking one evening—he was waiting for dinner—in a grove of rugged euphorbias. The evening was very beautiful, the sun declining in the west towards a range of high hills which they had that day passed. There was a great bank of purple-grey clouds loftier than the hills; these were fringed with pale gold, else you could not have told which was mountain and which was cloud. There was also a breeze blowing, just enough to make a rustling sound among the cactuses and scrub. This it was probably that prevented Harry from hearing the stealthy footsteps of an enormous lion, until startled by a roar that made the blood tingle in his very shoes.