The snake, which was a very large one, had been laid hold of by the boy in the imperfect light, and had instantly bitten him in the wrist, on which the punctures of the fangs were plainly visible.  A handkerchief was at once tied round the wounded limb, with a small pebble so placed as to compress the brachial artery inside the forearm, and with the iron ramrod from a carbine as a lever, we screwed this rough tourniquet up until the circulation was in great measure cut off.  Luckily Dunmore had a pocket-knife with him, for the sheath-knives we carried were but rude instruments for surgery, and with the small blade he slashed the bitten part freely, while Lizzie, applying her lips to the wound, did her best to draw out the subtle venom.  Some of us carried flasks, containing various spirits, and the contents of these were at once mixed —­ brandy, rum, hollands, all indiscriminately —­ in a quart pot, and tossed off by the sufferer, without the slightest visible effect.  Had the spirit taken the smallest hold upon him, we should have felt hope, for if a man suffering from snake-bite can be made intoxicated, he is safe.  But the poison neutralised the potent draught, and poor Cato showed no indication of having swallowed anything stronger than water.  With the superstition inherent in the blacks, he had made up his mind to die, and his broken English, as he moaned out, “Plenty soon this fellow go bong,” was painful in the extreme.

“It’s no use,” said Dunmore.  “I know these fellows better than any of you, and Cato will never recover.  I had a boy down on the Mary River, who was knocked down with low fever.  Half a pennyweight of quinine would have put him to rights, but he had made up his mind to die, and when once they have done that, all the drugs in a doctor’s shop won’t do them any good.”

Everything we could think of was proposed, but speedily rejected as useless.

“Pour a charge of powder on the wound,” said Jack Clarke, “and then fire it, that will take the part out clean enough;” but we agreed that it would be putting the boy to unnecessary pain, for the poison must be already in the system and beyond the reach of local remedy; and the patient had become drowsy, and repeatedly begged to be left alone and allowed to go to sleep.

“We must walk him about,” said Dunmore, “it is the only chance, and painful as it is, I must have it done.  Remember, I’m responsible for the boy, and no means must be left untried.”

I had withdrawn a little from the group, and as I stood some distance off, outside the circle of light thrown by the fire, I could not help thinking what a scene for the painter’s brush was here presented.  The dark outline of the lofty gums looked black and forbidding as funeral plumes, against the leaden sky.  The rugged range starting up in the rear, cast a threatening gloom over the little valley in which we were encamped, and the distant thunder of a falling torrent could, with little effort, be interpreted