to, any other direction would do as well, but fate is upon him, he is the foredoomed one, the “one more unfortunate,” the one to “be taken” amidst the many to “be left”—some for another time. Looking up, suddenly, with the fresh-turned mud upon his nose, he is surprised to see the log right beside him, so near that he might jump on the top of it, were he so minded, and—and by the jaguars!—he _is_ so minded. He will do it, he has run down logs before, he rather likes it; sometimes, too, by ripping up the bark one may get at something—that upon a log which he thought, not long ago, in his overwariness, might get at him. The recollection gives piquancy to the situation. He brings all four legs together, and rises in a light, elastic spring. In the very moment of doing so—a second or so before, perhaps, but the motion cannot be arrested now—he notices that a change has come over the supposed log. It has moved; nay, it is moving. One end of it, the longest, thinnest end, the tail end—oh, heavens! _the tail_—is gliding away in a curve, till now its tip almost touches the further side, not of a log, but of a gigantic alligator, whose head, with grinning jaws, is at the same time raised, and whose greeny, baleful eye, falling, like death, upon the deceived animal, seems to claim him for its own. What can he do? All too late the fraud is revealed to him; no log, but a cruel saurian that has, all along, been waiting for its prey. What can he do now?—poor miserable, cheated pig, so happy but a moment before, and now—— He would stop himself if he could, but he is in mid-air and cannot check the impetus. On he must; but even so—even in mid-air thought may be active. Our pig’s brain is working. He has escaped from as great a danger. He remembers that time with the jaguar. Courage! even now. Come down on the alligator’s back, that he must do, but the instant he touches it he will spring lightly up again, and far away on the other side. Then—there is hope yet. One more spring, a race, and a scamper, and—— But the tail of the alligator is by this time bent round as tight as it will go—it has not taken long—and suddenly, like a bow when the arrow is loosed, it flies back, and then with a mighty swing comes round in the opposite direction. It meets the flying body of the pig, not directly, but with a tremendous sideway blow; there is a heavy, dull sound, a squeal, choked suddenly as for want of breath, and hurled obliquely from its original course, the luckless and now almost inanimate creature falls in a dead heap, some yards beyond the saurian’s head. Recovery from such a blow would be in any case doubtful, but the pig has no time to recover. With a sudden, swift rush the alligator is upon him, and seizing the body by the skin, which it holds puckered up between its front teeth, it shakes it furiously, as a terrier would a rat, and then half drags, half pushes it before it, as it crawls through the mud, to the water’s edge.