For M—–­ (the civiliser of Montserrat) had gone off early, with mule, cutlass, and haversack, back over the Doubloon and into the wilds of Manzanilla, to settle certain disputed squatter claims, and otherwise enforce the law; and now the night had fallen, and he was not yet home.  However, he rode up at last, dead beat, with a strong touch of his old swamp-fever, and having had an adventure, which had like to have proved his last.  For as he rode through the Doubloon at low tide in the morning, he espied in the surf that river-god, or Jumby, of which I spoke just now; namely, the gray back-fin of a shark; and his mule espied it too, and laid back her ears, knowing well what it was.  M—–­ rode close up to the brute.  He seemed full seven feet long, and eyed him surlily, disinclined to move off; so they parted, and M—–­ went on his way.  But his business detained him longer than he expected; when he got back to the river-mouth it was quite dark, and the tide was full high.  He must either sleep on the sands, which with fever upon him would not have been over-safe, or try the passage.  So he stripped, swam the mule over, tied her up, and then went back, up to his shoulders in surf; and cutlass in hand too, for that same shark might be within two yards of him.  But on his second journey he had to pile on his head, first his saddle, and then his clothes and other goods; few indeed, but enough to require both hands to steady them:  and so walked helpless through the surf, expecting every moment to be accosted by a set of teeth, from which he would hardly have escaped with life.  To have faced such a danger, alone and in the dark, and thoroughly well aware, as an experienced man, of its extremity, was good proof (if any had been needed) of the indomitable Scots courage of the man.  Nevertheless, he said, he never felt so cold down his back as he did during that last wade.  By God’s blessing the shark was not there, or did not see him; and he got safe home, thankful for dinner and quinine.

Going back the next morning at low tide, we kept a good look-out for M—–­’s shark, spreading out, walkers and riders, in hopes of surrounding him and cutting him up.  There were half a dozen weapons among us, of which my heavy bowie-knife was not the worst; and we should have given good account of him had we met him, and got between him and the deep water.  But our valour was superfluous.  The enemy was nowhere to be seen; and we rode on, looking back wistfully, but in vain, for a gray fin among the ripples.

So we rode back, along the Cocal and along that wonderful green glade, where I, staring at Noranteas in tree-tops, instead of at the ground beneath my horse’s feet, had the pleasure of being swallowed up—­my horse’s hindquarters at least—­in the very same slough which had engulfed M—–­’s mule three days before, and got a roll in much soft mud.  Then up to —–­’s camp, where we expected breakfast, not with greediness,