Page:The Curious Republic of Gondour, and Other Whimsical Sketches.djvu/59

 represent the boys) were following close after them. As my horse nodded to rest, I heard a sort of panting behind me, and turned and saw that a tawny youth from the village had overtaken me—a true remnant and representative of his ancestress the Witch—a galvanised scurvy, wrought into the human shape and garnished with ophthalmia and leprous scars—an airy creature with an invisible shirt-front that reached below the pit of his stomach, and no other clothing to speak of except a tobacco-pouch, an ammunition-pocket, and a venerable gun, which was long enough to club any game with that came within shooting distance, but far from efficient as an article of dress.

I thought to myself, “Now this disease with a human heart in it is going to shoot me.” I smiled in derision at the idea of a Bedouin daring to touch off his great-grandfather's rusty gun and getting his head blown off for his pains. But then it occurred to me, in simple school-boy language, “Suppose he should take deliberate aim and 'haul off' and fetch me with