ondering at his companion
being a white man.

I took little note of them, for I was already anxious on behalf of
the old negro. We had six miles to go; could he hold out? 'Twas two
miles from the big house to the house we had left; a horseman could
cover the distance in little longer than it would take us to reach
the forest; and then we should have but one mile start in a race of
six. The odds were heavily against even me, in strong and lusty
youth; how much more heavily against Uncle Moses, who was perhaps
three times my age!

Already I was slackening my pace to keep with him. And we were
cumbered with the muskets we had seized--heavy weapons, and, when I
came to think of it, likely to prove of little use to us, for we
could not pause in the race to light matches, nor, once they were
discharged, should we have time to recharge them. Yet I dared not
suggest we should fling them down; they were our only weapons save
for a knife that Uncle Moses carried at his belt, and perchance if
it came to a fight at close quarters we could wield them with some
effect as clubs. So we pounded on, saying never a word, I
husbanding my breath, the negro panting hard.

We came to the edge of the forest land bordering the estate, and
when we had plunged into it for some little distance Moses was fain
to stop to recover his wind.

"Dey hab not started yet, massa," he gasped.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"'Cos dere is no sound of de dogs," he replied.

"Should we hear them three miles away?"

"Oh, yes, massa; de wind carry de sound miles and miles."

"We have luck on our side, then. Can you run again?"

"Yes, massa. Po' Uncle Moses hain't no chicken now, but he hain't
done yet."

And then we set off again through the forest, at a more moderate
pace now, for the way ran no longer clear. The word "forest" to a
stay-at-home means a tract of soft, springy turf, with tall trees
and pleasant glades and clumps of bracken that shelter rabbits and
other small creatures of the woodland. But the forest of the West
Indies bears to our English forest the relation of a giant to a
dwarf. The fronds of the bracken grow to feet where we have inches;
weeds that with us would shelter a mouse would there oonceal an
elephant, and a creeping plant which in England would delay a man
only while he kicked its tendrils aside grows in Jamaica to such a
strength and tanglement that it would obstruct the passage of a
troop of horse.

This was somewhat