"Look here, sonny; if you play any longer on that string you'll wear it out. In the morning there was one melon left, the spring-gun having blown the fourth one to smithereens--pieces of it being scattered all over the ground--though there was not a fragment of skin or hair or feather to show what sort of thing it was had carried off the fifth melon. There was one left. The biggest of the lot--a great dark-green ball of liquid fire and honey, that would ha' fetched first prize at any show. I made up my mind to save that one, so I built a kraal round it with stakes driven in a foot deep, and roofed in with saplins, and over all a fence of thorns. And when the dark came on I sat out there with the gun and the bull's-eye lantern. I tell you I've suffered a lot in trying to keep those six melons of yours--and that night there was a stillness in the air that brought out all my sufferings on the stretch like fiddle-strings. It was dead quiet far into the night, with the stars blinking, and the voice of the sea appearing to pass overhead, when of a sudden there came that splash from the pool, loud and startlin'. I stood up to look down into the valley, then I slipped inside." "What did you see?" "See! nothing; but I felt there was something crawling up that hill--and through the air all around there came that humming. Yes, I slipped inside; but on the bank I left that lantern glaring like a great eye over the melon patch. I could not sleep for a melancholy sound in the air, half whistle, half moan; and when I went into the middle room to look out of the window, I'm gummed ef that bull's-eye lantern wasn't standing on the table with the slide shut. That very same lantern I'd left all ablaze on the bank--and in the room there was a smell of crabs, a damp, muddy smell, and beyond the window was a smoulderin' fire--the same dull spark-like point I had seen on the first night." "Your pipe is out; do you want another match?" "A match is not much good without baccy. Thankye, sonny. So I climbed into bed again, or rather--for I'm not ashamed of being afraid--under the bed, and there I was when I yeard the old rooster say good-morning to the sun. The first thing I did was to look at the melon patch, and-- what'jer think--" "Go on, you wretched old fabricator." "I seed that last water-melon sliding down the hill." "Sliding? Wasn't it walking?"