[Illustration: "Then a strange thing happened."]

My name is SMALLUN HALFBOY, a curious name for an old fellow like
me, who have been battered and knocked about all over the world from
Yorkshire to South Africa. I'm not much of a hand at writing, but,
bless your heart, I know the _Bab Ballads_ by heart, and I can tell
you it's no end of a joke quoting them everywhere, especially when
you quote out of an entirely different book. I am not a brave man, but
nobody ever was a surer shot with an Express longbow, and no one ever
killed more Africans, men and elephants, than I have in my time. But
I do love blood. I love it in regular rivers all over the place, with
gashes and slashes and lopped heads and arms and legs rolling about
everywhere. Black blood is the best variety; I mean the blood of black
men, because nobody really cares twopence about them, and you can
massacre several thousands of them in half-a-dozen lines and offend no
single soul. And, after all, I am not certain that black men have any
souls, so that makes things safe all round, as someone says in the
_Bab Ballads_.

CHAPTER II.

I was staying with my old friend Sir HENRY HURTUS last winter at
his ancestral home in Yorkshire. We had been shooting all day with
indifferent results, and were returning home fagged and weary with our
rifles over our shoulders. I ought to have mentioned that COODENT--of
course, you remember Captain COODENT, R.N.--was of the party. Ever
since he had found his legs so much admired by an appreciative public,
he had worn a kilt without stockings, in order to show them. This,
however, was not done from vanity, I think, but rather from a high