startled up by distant crashes in the depths
of the forest—the death-knells of falling
trees. We kept fires alight, in case of wild
animals stealing out on us in the darkness;
and the flaring red light, and the thick,
winding smoke, alternately showed and hid
the forest-prospect in a strangely treacherous
and ghostly way. The children shuddered
with fear; even the Pirate Captain forgot,
for the first time, to jingle his eternal guitar.

When we were mustered in the morning
for the march, I fully expected to see the
axes unpacked. To my surprise they were
not disturbed. The Indians drew their long
chopping-knives (called machetes in the
language of that country); made for a place
among the trees where I could see no signs
of a path; and begun cutting at the bushes
and shrubs, and at the wild vines and
creepers, twirling down together in all sorts
of fantastic forms, from the lofty branches.
After clearing a few dozen yards inwards
they came out to us again, whooping and
showing their wicked teeth, as they laid
hold of the mules' halters to lead them on.
The Pirate Captain, before we moved after,
took out a pocket compass, set it, pondered
over it for some time, shrugged his shoulders,
and screeched out "March," as usual. We
entered the forest, leaving behind us the last
chance of escape, and the last hope of ever
getting back to the regions of humanity and
civilisation. By this time, we had walked
inland, as nearly as I could estimate, about
thirty miles.

The order of our march was now, of necessity,
somewhat changed. We all followed
each other in a long line, shut in, however,
as before, in front and in rear, by the Indians,
the Sambos, and the pirates. Though none
of us could see a vestige of any path, it was
clear that our guides knew where they were
going; for, we were never stopped by any
obstacles, except the shrubs and wild-vines
which they could cut through with their
chopping-knives. Sometimes, we marched
under great branches which met like arches
high over our heads. Sometimes, the boughs
were so low that we had to stoop to pass
under them. Sometimes, we wound in and
out among mighty trunks of trees, with their
gnarled roots twisting up far above the
ground, and with creepers in full flower
twining down in hundreds from their lofty
branches. The size of the leaves and the
countless multitude of the trees shut
out the sun, and made a solemn dimness
which it was awful and without hope to
walk through. Hours would pass without
our hearing a sound but the dreary rustle
of our own feet over the leafy ground.
At other times, whole troops of parrots, with
feathers of all the colours of the rainbow,
chattered and shrieked at us; and processions
of monkeys, fifty or sixty at a time,
followed our progress in the boughs
overhead: passing through the thick leaves
with a sound like the rush of a steady wind.
Every now and then, the children were startled
by lizard-like creatures, three feet long,
running up the trunks of the trees as we
passed by them; more than once, swarms
of locusts tormented us, startled out of
their hiding-places by the monkeys in the
boughs. For five days we marched
incessantly through this dismal forest-region,
only catching a clear glimpse of the sky
above us, on three occasions in all that time.
The distance we walked each day seemed to
be regulated by the positions of springs and
streams in the forest, which the Indians
knew of. Sometimes those springs and
streams lay near together; and our day's
work was short. Sometimes they were
far apart; and the march was long and
weary. On all occasions, two of the Indians,
followed by two of the Sambos, disappeared
as soon as we encamped for the night; and
returned, in a longer or shorter time, bringing
water with them. Towards the latter
part of the journey, weariness had so
completely mastered the weakest among our
company, that they ceased to take notice of
anything. They walked without looking to
the right or to the left, and they eat their
wretched food and lay down to sleep with
a silent despair that was shocking. Mr.
Pordage left off maundering now, and
Serjeant Drooce was so quiet and biddable, that
Tom Packer had an easy time of it with him
at last. Those among us who still talked,
began to get a habit of dropping our voices
to a whisper. Short's jokes languished and
dwindled; Miss Maryon's voice, still kind
and tender as ever, began to lose its clearness;
and the poor children, when they got
weary and cried, shed tears silently, like old
people. It seemed as if the darkness and
the hush of the endless forest had cast its
shadow on our spirits, and had stolen drearily
into our inmost hearts.

On the sixth day, we saw the blessed
sunshine on the ground before us, once more.
Prisoners as we were, there was a feeling of
freedom on stepping into the light again, and
on looking up, without interruption, into the
clear blue Heaven, from which no human
creature can keep any other human
creature, when the time comes for rising to
it. A turn in the path brought us out
suddenly at an Indian village—a wretched
place, made up of two rows of huts built
with poles, the crevices between them stopped
with mud, and the roofs thatched in
the coarsest manner with palm-leaves. The
savages squatted about, jumped to their feet
in terror as we came in view; but, seeing the
Indians at the head of our party, took heart,
and began chattering and screeching, just like
the parrots we had left in the forest. Our
guides answered in their gibberish; some lean,
half-wild dogs yelped and howled incessantly;
and the Pirates discharged their muskets and
loaded them again, to make sure that their