getting a clerkship. For you see we didn't know that we had played out
all our small cards, and that the trumps were going to turn up. No; we
thought our "hands" were bad all through. It was a very lonely part of
the country that we were in, inhabited by a few scattered farms, whose
houses were stockaded and fenced in to defend them against the Kaffirs.
Tom Donahue and I had a little hut right out in the bush; but we were
known to possess nothing, and to be handy with our revolvers, so we
had little to fear. There we waited, doing odd jobs, and hoping that
something would turn up. Well, after we had been there about a month
something did turn up upon a certain night, something which was the
making of both of us; and it's about that night, sir, that I'm going to
tell you. I remember it well. The wind was howling past our cabin, and
the rain threatened to burst in our rude window. We had a great wood
fire crackling and sputtering on the hearth, by which I was sitting
mending a whip, while Tom was lying in his bunk groaning disconsolately
at the chance which had led him to such a place.

"Cheer up, Tom--cheer up," said I. "No man ever knows what may be
awaiting him."

"Ill luck, ill luck, Jack," he answered. "I always was an unlucky dog.
Here have I been three years in this abominable country; and I see lads
fresh from England jingling the money in their pockets, while I am as
poor as when I landed. Ah, Jack, if you want to keep your head above
water, old friend, you must try your fortune away from me."

"Nonsense, Tom; you're down in your luck to-night. But hark! Here's some
one coming outside. Dick Wharton, by the tread; he'll rouse you, if any
man can."