"Und he had sayed he vos a ver' heafy sleeper!" he wound up. "So you see, it vos a mutual misunderstanding. Nicht was?" "This," I said, "makes everything satisfactory. Now, if you don't mind, I should like to go to sleep. I have to catch a train at ten. Perhaps you will see that I am not awakened before nine?" When he had impressed this on the penitent boots, we parted, with mutual expressions of regard. The boots--no doubt in a well-meant desire to make up for his earlier mistake--this time forbore to awaken me at all. I accordingly awoke at midday, in plenty of time for my next train, which left twenty-two hours later. THE HORROR IN THE PIT. +By E. F. Martin, late of the Royal Niger Company's Service.+ I have since been to a great extent cured; but in my earlier African days, somewhere about eleven years ago, I was full of romantic ideas and intoxicated with the strange glamour and mystery that pervaded everything connected with the great Niger River and its unknown territories. Having tied up to a bank late one afternoon, half an hour before sunset, I took my gun--a sporting Martini--and set out from the little river launch, of which I was the sole white passenger, and made my way through the long grass skirting the banks of the stream, until I emerged into an open, ploughed field, with its lines of mounds about eighteen inches high, indicating guinea-corn or yam cultivation. My intention was to reach a backwater, some half a mile away, which I had noticed as we steamed up the river a short time before tying up. I hoped I might find hippo, or, at any rate, an alligator or two, hidden in the seclusion of this secret byway of the great river. Crossing the field I entered a kind of copse, consisting of minor trees and scrub. Pushing my way through I found some clearer ground, carpeted with the gourd plant. Ahead of me I noticed that the land suddenly dipped to a large pool that might have been connected with the main river. This, I thought, would do as well as my backwater, especially as I heard just then the distant grunting roar of a hippo. Next moment, without warning, the solid ground gave way under my feet, and I went hurtling down into black darkness, bringing up with a tremendous shock that seemed to jar me from tip to toe. [Illustration: MR. E. F. MARTIN, WHO HAD AN APPALLING STRUGGLE WITH A SNAKE AT THE BOTTOM OF A PIT. _From a Photograph._] When I had recovered from my utter astonishment, and had made certain that no bones were broken, I looked about and above me to see where I was and what had happened. Around and beneath me I could see nothing; everything was shrouded in impenetrable blackness. Above me, however, I saw the evening sky, gradually fading into night. My gun was gone. Where was I? What had happened? Had the earth opened and swallowed me up?