ne think," replied
our amiable little guide, who, enjoining the strictest silence, at once
put herself in motion, bidding us, by a sign, to follow her.

For more than an hour and a half we crept cautiously along, sometimes
crawling on all fours where the country was open, and frequently
stopping, while Lizzie went noiselessly forward and reconnoitred,
before beckoning to us to advance again. The direction in which she
led us lay at the base of the hills, which on one side bounded the
little plain and its bay, and though we could form but a crude idea of
where we were going, owing to the thickness of the undergrowth, yet it
was sufficiently evident that the young lady was one of nature's
tacticians, and meditated a flank blow at her unfortunate relatives.
Proceeding, we came at last within a stone's throw of the beach, and
could hear the mimic waves rolling on the sand, at no great distance,
on our right hand. Lizzie now pointed to a small belt of vine shrub
that lay in front of us, and indicated that immediately outside it were
the 'gunyahs', or huts; and, "plenty you shoot," she added showing her
white teeth as she grinned with glee at the thoughts of the cheerful
surprise she had prepared for her old companions. We were not
thoroughly on the 'qui vive', for we thought this unknown bay would be
the very spot in which the blacks were likely to seclude any prisoners
from the 'Eva', and accordingly willingly followed the lithe figure of
our little guide, as she wound her way through the tangled brake, like
a black snake, and with a facility that we in vain attempted to
imitate. The troopers--who had reduced their clothing to a minimum,
for their sole vestment consisted of a forage-cap and
cartridge-belt--wound along as noiselessly as Lizzie; but we poor
whites--with our flannel shirts and other complicated paraphernalia
that custom would not permit us to dispense with in the matter-of-fact
way they were laid aside by our sable allies--were getting into
continual trouble; now hitched up helplessly by a lawyer vine, whose
sharp prickles, like inverted fish-hooks, rent the skin; now crawling
unsuspiciously against a tree-ants' nest, an indiscretion that the
fierce little insects visited with immediate and most painful
punishment; or else, becoming aware, by unmistakable symptoms, that we
were trying to force a passage through a stinging tree-shrub. Whenever
we thus came to grief, Lizzie would stop, turn round, and wave