“No,” replied Tom, with a touch of bitterness in his tone; “he’s not dead yet.”
“He?” exclaimed Wilkins; “do you mean to say that you are troubled by only one of the vile creatures?”
“Oh no!” said Tom; “there are millions of ’em humming viciously round my head at this moment, but one of them is so big and assiduous that I have come to recognise his voice—there! d’you hear it?”
“Hear it!” cried Wilkins; “how can you expect me to hear one of yours when I am engaged with a host of my own? Ah! but I hear that,” he added, laughing, as another tremendous crack resounded from Tom Brown’s cheek; “what a tough skin you must have, to be sure, to stand such treatment?”
“I am lost in admiration of the amiableness of your temper, Tom,” remarked the major. “If I were to get such a slap in the face as that, even from myself, I could not help flying in a passion. Hope the enemy is defeated at last?”
“I—I—think so,” said Tom, in that meditative tone which assures the listener that the speaker is intensely on the qui vive; “yes, I believe I have—eh—no—there he—oh!”
Another pistol-shot slap concluded the sentence, and poor Tom’s companions in sorrow burst into a fit of laughter.
“Let ’im bite, sir,” growled the deep bass voice of Hardy, who lay under a neighbouring wagon; “when he’s got his beak well shoved into you, and begins to suck, he can’t get away so quick, ’cause of havin’ to pull it out again! hit out hard and quick then, an’ you’re sure of him. But the best way’s to let ’em bite, an’ go to sleep.”
“Good advice; I’ll try to take it,” said Tom, turning round with a sigh, and burying his face in the blanket. His companions followed his example, and in spite of rain and mosquitoes were soon fast asleep.
This wet weather had a very depressing effect on their spirits, and made the region so unhealthy that it began ere long to tell on the weaker members of the sporting party; as for the natives, they, being inured to it, were proof against everything. Being all but naked, they did not suffer from wet garments; and as they smeared their bodies over with grease, the rain ran off them as it does off the ducks. However, it did not last long at that time. In a few days the sky cleared, and the spirits of the party revived with their health.