"No; on the whole, I don’t think they would," said Mr. Blakeney. "And if they did, although they might frighten you and even hurt you, I don’t think they could kill a man. They could kill a child, as they do undoubtedly kill a young calf sometimes; and for that reason I’m not over fond of them--in fact, I destroy them whenever I come across them, if I can. They’re slippery brutes, however, and once let them get near rocks or bush and you’ll never see them again." "The natives about here, father, don’t like them?" queried Tom, as he finished his part of the task, and together he and Guy rolled the stripped body of the serpent from its skin, which they had now completely flayed away from the flesh. "No, the Bechuanas don’t like them," rejoined Mr. Blakeney. "At the same time they don’t care about molesting them. In Zululand the natives will never touch them. They have an idea that the souls of their ancestors return to the bodies of these serpents, and will even allow them to live close to their huts. For my part, I don’t like the proximity of such neighbours." Having carefully scraped every fragment of fat or flesh from the skin, the two lads rubbed in arsenical soap, and pegged it out on the shady side of the wall of an outhouse, where in a day or two the cure was complete. In a few more weeks Guy Hardcastle had acquired a very fair knowledge of the far-spreading pastures of Bamborough Farm. He began to pick up, too, some knowledge of stock and stock-farming, for he was a quick lad, who always had his wits about him, and was anxious to gain any sort of information that might be useful to him. He had seen mealies and oats reaped, and assisted in other operations. He had had a very good time, for, mingled with the preliminaries of a pastoral farmer’s life, to which his uncle had introduced him, he had had a fair amount of shooting, several pleasant excursions with his cousins to neighbouring farms, and a trip to Mafeking to bring home stores. At the end of January he accompanied his uncle to Johannesburg with a herd of fat cattle, which were disposed of for excellent prices on their arrival there.