Fiction > Book editions > London, 1885 - Dynamiter

THE FAIR CUBAX. 159
and looked back at my companion with a horror in my
eyes. ' The coffin snake,' said I, ' the snake that dogs
its victim like a hound.'
But he was not to be dissuaded. ' I am an old
traveller,' said he. ' This is a foul jungle indeed ; but
we shall soon be at an end.'
' Ay,' said I, looking at him with a strange smile,
' what end ? '
Thereupon he laughed again and again, but not very
heartily ; and then, perceiving that the path began to
widen and grow higher, ' There ! ' said he. ' What did I
tell you ? We are past the worst.'
Indeed, we had now come to the bayou, which was in
that place very narrow and bridged across by a fallen
trunk ; but on either hand we could see it broaden out,
under a cavern of great arms of trees and hanging
creepers : sluggish, putrid, of a horrible and sickly stench,
floated on by the flat heads of alligators, and its banks
alive with scarlet crabs.
' If we fall from that unsteady bridge,' said I, ' see,
where the caiman lies ready to devour us ! If, by the
least divergence from the path, we should be snared in a
morass, see, where those myriads of scarlet vermin scour
the border of the thicket ! Once helpless, how they
would swarm together to the assault ! What could man
do against a thousand of such mailed assailants ? And
what a death were that, to perish alive under their
claws ! '
' Are you mad, girl ? ' he cried. ' I bid you be silent
and lead on.'
Again I looked upon him, half relenting ; and at that
he raised the stick that was in his hand and cruelly
struck me on the face. ' Lead on ! ' he cried again.
' Must I be all day, catching my death in this vile slough,
and all for a prating slave-girl 1 '
I took the blow in silence, I took it smiling ; but the
blood welled back upon my heart. Something, I know-
not what, fell at that moment with a dull plunge in the
waters of the lagoon, and I told myself it was my pity
that had fallen.