wenty yards from me. It
was on the move as well as I was, attempting to force his way through
the canes, so as to come to me. I retreated from him as fast as I
could, but he gained slowly on me, and my strength was fast
exhausting. I thought I heard sounds at a distance, and they became
more and more distinct, but what they were, my fear and my struggles
probably prevented me from making out. My eyes were fixed upon the
fierce animal which was in pursuit of me, and I now thanked God that
the canes were so thick and impassable; still the animal evidently
gained ground--until it was not more than five yards from me, dashing
and springing at the canes, and tearing them aside with his teeth.

The sounds were now nearer, and I made them out to be the howling of
other animals. A moment's pause, and I thought it was the baying of
dogs; and I then thought that I must have arrived close to where the
schooner was, and that I heard the baying of the bloodhounds. At last
I could do no more, and I dropped, exhausted and almost senseless, in
the mud. I recollect hearing the crashing of the canes, and then a
savage roar, and then yells, and growls, and struggles, and fierce
contention--but I had fainted.

I must now inform the reader that about an hour after I had left the
boat the captain of the slaver was pulling up the river, and was
hailed by our men in our long-boat. Perceiving them on shore on that
side of the river, and that they were in distress, he pulled towards
them, and they told him what had happened, and that an hour previous I
had left the boat to force my way through the cane-brakes, and they
had heard nothing of me since.

"Madness!" cried he. "He is a lost man. Stay till I come back from the
schooner."

He went back to the schooner, and taking two of his crew, who were
negroes, and his two bloodhounds, into the boat, he returned
immediately, and as soon as he landed he put the bloodhounds on my
track, and sent the negroes on with them. They had followed me in all
my windings, for it appeared that I had travelled in every direction,
and had come up with me just as I had sunk with exhaustion, and the
panther was so close upon me. The bloodhounds had attacked the
panther, and this was the noise which sounded in my ears, as I lay
stupified and at the mercy of the wild beast. The panther was not
easily, although eventually, overcome, and the black men coming up,
had found me and borne me in a state of insensibility o