Fiction > Book editions > London, 1885 - Dynamiter

158 NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS.
youth, prevailed upon these scruples ; and though my
face was pale and must have reflected the horror that
oppressed my spirits, it was with a firm stej) that I re-
turned to the borders of the swamp, and with smiling lips
that I bade him rise and follow me.
The path on which we now entered was cut, like a
tunnel, through the living jungle. On either hand and
overhead, the mass of foliage was" continuously joined ;
the day sparingly filtered through the depth of super-
impending wood ; and the air was hot like steam, and
heady with vegetable odours, and lay like a load upon
the lungs and brain. Underfoot, a great depth of mould
received our silent footprints ; on each side, mimosas, as
tall as a man, shrank from my passing skirts with a con-
tinuous hissing rustle ; and but for these sentient vege-
tables, all in that den of pestilence was motionless and
noiseless.
We had gone but a little way in, when Mr. Caulder
was seized with sudden nausea, and must sit dow^n a
moment on the path. My heart yearned, as I beheld him ;
and I seriously begged the doomed mortal to return upon
his steps. What were a few jewels in the scales with
life ? I asked. But no, he said ; that witch Madam
Jezebel would find them out ; he was an honest man,
and would not stand to be defrauded, and so forth,
panting the while, like a sick dog. Presently he got to
his feet again, protesting he had conquered his uneasi-
ness ; but as we again began to go forward, I saw in his
changed countenance, the first approaches of death.
' Master,' said I, ' you look pale, deathly pale ; your
pallor fills me with dread. Your eyes are bloodshot ;
they are red like the rubies that we seek.'
' Wench,' he cried, ' look before you ; look at your
steps. I declare to Heaven, if you annoy me once again
by looking back, I shall remind you of the change in your
position.'
A little after, I observed a worm upon the ground,
and told, in a whisper, that its touch was death. Pre-
sently a great green serpent, vivid as the grass in spring,
wound rapidly across the path ; and once again I paused