to permit a doubt. For at least a mile, at almost every step
Dick came in contact with the scattered bones; while ever
and again huge goat-suckers, disturbed by the approach of
the travellers, rose with flapping wings, and circled round
their heads.
The youth's heart sank with secret dismay lest Mrs. Weldon should divine the meaning of this ghastly scene, and appeal to him for explanation, but fortunately she had again insisted on carrying her little patient, and although the child was fast asleep, he absorbed her whole attention. Nan was by her side, almost equally engrossed. Old Tom alone was fully alive to the significance of his surroundings, and with downcast eyes he mournfully pursued his march. Full of amazement, the other negroes looked right and left upon what might appear to them as the upheaval of some vast cemetery, but they uttered no word of inquiry or surprise.
Meantime the bed of the stream had increased both in breadth and depth, and the rivulet had in a degree lost its character of a rushing torrent. This was a change which Dick Sands observed hopefully, interpreting it as an indica- tion that it might itself become navigable, or would empty itself into some more important tributary of the Atlantic.
His resolve was fixed: he would follow its course at all hazards. As soon, therefore, as he found that the elephant's track was quitting the water's edge, he made up his mind to abandon it, and had no hesitation in again resorting to the use of the axe. Once more, then, commenced the labour of cutting a way through the entanglement of bushes and creepers that were thick upon the soil. It was no longer forest through which they were wending their arduous path; trees were comparatively rare; only tall clumps of bamboos rose above the grass, so high, however, that even Hercules could not see above them, and the passage of the little troop could only have been discovered by the rustling in the stalks.
In the course of the afternoon the soil became soft and
