his own personal perils by flood and field, or of the hairbreadth 'scapes
of earlier travellers. For it was his amusement to amuse me; his happiness
to make me happy. And I in return loved him with all my childish heart.
Nay, with something deeper and more romantic than a childish love--say
rather with that kind of passionate hero-worship which is an attribute more
of youth than of childhood, and, like the quality of mercy, blesseth him
that gives even more than him that takes.

"What dreadful places you have travelled in, Monsieur Maurice!" I exclaimed
one day. "What dangers you have seen!"

He had been showing me a little sketchbook full of Eastern jottings, and
had just explained how a certain boat therein depicted had upset with him
on a part of the Upper Nile so swarming with alligators that he had to
swim for his life, and even so, barely scrambled up the slimy bank in
time.

"He who travels far courts many kinds of death," replied Monsieur Maurice;
"but he escapes that which is worst--death from ennui."

"Suppose they had dragged you back, when you were half way up the bank!"
said I, shuddering.

And as I spoke, I felt myself turn pale; for I could see the brown monsters
crowding to shore, and the red glitter of their cruel eyes and the hot
breath steaming from their open jaws.

"Then they would have eaten me up as easily as you might swallow an
oyster," laughed Monsieur Maurice. "Nay, my child, why that serious face? I
should have escaped a world of trouble, and been missed by no one--except