All this time I could hear the loud shouting of our people in the distance, and a scattering shot now and then, but the work nearer home was more than sufficient to occupy me; for the dog, after another moment of comparative repose, suddenly raised himself on his fore-paws; for the first time I could see that he had been shot through the spine, near the flank, so that his two hind-legs were utterly powerless, and trailing on the ground. He scrambled on a foot or two nearer--again all was still, and he lay quiet with his nose resting on the ground, as if he had been watching his prey; but pain appeared suddenly to overcome him again, as, stretching out his fore-paws straight before him, and throwing his head back, he set up the most infernal howl that ear ever tingled to. "Merciful powers! can he mean to attack me?" thought I, as the fierce creature left the dead body, and reared himself on his forelegs, with open mouth, and tongue hanging out, uttering the most fearful cries, between a fierce bark and a howl, and again attempting to drag himself towards me. I made a desperate effort to rise, but could not; and in the prospect of so dreadful a death, I shouted for aid, as loud as my feebleness would let me. Once more suffering seemed to overcome the creature's ferocity, and he stopped and yelled again. Although I was still in some degree bewildered, and almost blinded from the blood that continued to flow down my forehead, and the flap of skin that covered my left eye, so as effectually to seal it, acting as a deadlight as it were, still, for dear life, I grasped my cutlass--alas, the blade was broken short off by the hilt! My left hand then mechanically clutched my belt where my pistol hung--"Ah, it _is_ there, any how." I instantly changed the broken blade into my other hand, and with the coolness of despair cocked the pistol in my right, and lay still, awaiting the approach of my fierce antagonist, under the tremendous persuasion that my fate was inevitable if I missed him. As I looked in breathless dread, he suddenly gave a scrambling wallop towards me--"I am done for--God have mercy on me, and receive my soul!" Another scramble. I felt his hissing hot breath; and the foam that he champed from his fangs, as he tossed his head from side to side in a paroxysm of rage and pain, fell like flakes of hot sulphur over my face. "Now is the time!" I thrust the pistol into his mouth, and pulled the trigger. Almighty powers! it flashed in the pan! With my remaining strength I endeavoured to thrust it down his throat, as he coughed up blood and froth into my face; he shook his head, clutched the weapon in his teeth, and then threw it from him, as if in disappointment that it had not been part and portion of his enemy; and again made a snap at my shoulder. I struck at him with my broken cutlass--he seemed not to feel the blow--and throwing myself back as far as I could, I shrieked in my extremity to that God whom I had so