In this way several bushels of potatoes and a lot of green corn were secured and placed by the natives in the yawl. Meanwhile another party, taking torches, proceeded to a corral near by, and slaughtered a fat ox, with great dexterity. This, in its turn, was placed in the boat, after which all hands prepared to turn in. "One of us must sleep in the yawl," remarked Duff, "and I guess it ought to be the lightest sleeper." Ben volunteered, saying that he would waken, as he expressed it, "at the bat of a cat's eye." Leaving Ben in the boat with a blanket and Winchester, the other two retired to the hut prepared for their reception, and lay down, as they thought, for the night. Duff was soon asleep, but Ralph remained wakeful. To add to his restlessness he soon found his blankets alive with fleas, from which these native huts are hardly ever free. After fighting and scratching for an hour or more, he got up and returned to the open air for relief. The scene was both weird and dismal. The small clearing, densely walled in by the forest where the trees sprang nearly two hundred feet in the air, seemed to be stifling under the compression, though the feeling was but the resulting languor of a tropic night without a breeze. Sundry strange and melancholy calls issued in varying cadences from the wilderness, and an occasional splash from the river denoted the passage of some huge marine animal. Crocodiles were bellowing sullenly up stream, and from the closed huts issued the sounds of heavy slumber. He was thinking it strange that no one should remain on guard amid a life so savage and isolated as that of these simple people, when he was aroused by a touch on his arm, as he sat musing on a log before the embers of their fire. CHAPTER XVIII. A Brush in the Wilderness. Ralph leaped to his feet and presented his ready rifle. But it was only Ben. The sailor's rugged face wore a look of alarm. "I'm glad ye're up," was his first remark. "I don't like the look of things, though what's stirrin' is more nor I can make out." "What have yon seen--or heard, for that matter? One can't see much under this wall of woods all about." "Divil a bit! So I pricked up me ears for list'nin. The crocydiles kep' up such a hullabaloo I could hardly hear meself think, but somehow I caught on to the sound of paddles a goin'. Hist now! Can't 'e hear that?" They were at one edge of the village, which was not defended by a kraal, or stockade, as is often the custom where enemies are feared. The dense forest undergrowth was not over thirty yards away. They could now hear certain stealthy sounds, as of some one or something moving within the timber. "I will wake Mr. Duff," whispered Ralph. "You go back to the boat, Ben. They may see us by the fire." The sailor returned to his post. The lad soon had the mate awake, listening to his explanation of their uneasiness.