CHAPTER VI. AFRICA.

Oh! oh! here is a little dried crocodile come alive, and opening a
horrid great mouth, lined with terrible teeth, at her.

No, he is no longer in the museum; he is in a broad river, yellow,
heavy, and thick with mud; the borders are crowded with enormous
reeds and rushes; there is no getting through; no breaking away
from him; here he comes; horrid, horrid beast! Oh, how could Lucy
have been so foolish as to want to travel in Africa up to the higher
parts of the Nile? How will she ever get back again? He will gobble
her up, her and Clare, who was trusted to her, and what will mamma
and sister do?

Hark! There's a cry, a great shout, and out jumps a little black
figure, with a stout club in his hand. Crash it goes down on the
head of master crocodile. The ugly beast is turning over on its
back and dying. Then Lucy has time to look at the little negro,
and he has time to look at her. What a droll figure he is, with
his wooly head and thick lips, the whites of his eyes and his teeth
gleaming so brightly, and his fat little black person shining all
over, as well it may, for he is rubbed from head to foot with castor-
oil. There it grows on the bush, with broad, beautiful, folded
leaves and red stems and the pretty grey and black nuts. Lucy
only wishes the negroes would keep it all to polish themselves
with, and not send any home.