The water seemed agitated as if an army of blacks were coming across, the bushes and grass were cracking as if a stampede of cattle was taking place, and through all these noises ran a piercing continuous yell such as no human being or animal I knew in nature could utter. The thought ran through me as I started to my feet: either it is the blacks who have come to kill you, or it is an alligator on the same errand. In any case, thought I, my only chance was to show fight. With that I grabbed my stick, and sang out, to gammon the blacks, "Here! hie! Bill! Jack! Jimmy! Here they are. Get the guns; we will have a shot at them!" While I screamed at the top of my voice like this, I struck the long grass with my stick, and, to frighten the alligator, if any were there, ran right down to where I had been before, yelling all the while. The noise kept on in front of me, but died away with some splashes in the water, just as I came down. When I stopped screaming all was silent. I stared around me, but the darkness was perfectly impenetrable. Was there an alligator now crouching at my feet ready to swallow me in a couple of mouthfuls? Or was I surrounded by a mob of savages, perhaps, lurking alongside of me, and seeing my helplessness? Or was it evil spirits? I did not know what it was, or where it had gone, and yet the hair seemed to rise on my head. Do not talk to me about bravery or cowardice! I believe most men are capable of screwing their courage up to the necessary point at any time, providing they know what is before and behind them, but if I knew where there was a man who would not have felt fear if placed in the same position as I stood in there, then I would fall down and bow before him. I crept back to where I had been lying when I heard the alarm and lay down again, and so exhausted was I that I fell asleep at once, and did not wake up before the sun was shining in my face. My first thought, of course, was the noise in the night, and I went down to the creek to look for tracks or signs of some sort. There, close by the tree, on the very spot where I first had laid myself down, was the half of a large kangaroo. It seemed bitten off right under the forelegs, all the rest was gone. On the road and in the soft mud by the water were the tracks of an immense alligator, and where it had come out and gone into the creek again a deep furrow as from a sulky plough had been made by its tail. I had never yet been so near death! It seemed plain to me that the first noise I had heard which induced me to get up and go further away from the water must have been the alligator stealing upon me, and that the unfortunate kangaroo afterwards unwittingly saved my life. But as there is scarcely anything that cannot be turned to good account, so I also tried to turn this accident to my advantage, because I took up my knife and cut some steaks out of the kangaroo, which I had to eat raw, as I could make no fire,