and thus the mischief is done. You have had a narrow escape, Miss
Stanhope."

After this little adventure the wanderers conducted their perambulations
much more circumspectly, and Ned lost no time in providing his companion
and himself with a stout pliant switch, which he had heard or read
somewhere is a most effective weapon against snakes.

Soon after this they reached the outskirts of the forest, and it was not
long before Ned discovered in a little greed patch of sward a small
grove of banana trees with huge bunches of fruit, more or less ripe,
depending from the crown of immense palmate leaves. He saw that the
trees were of two or three different kinds, and, looking more closely,
he quickly discovered that of which he was in search. Then, approaching
one of the trees, he reached up and dragged the bunch of fruit down
toward him, and, detaching several of the bananas, which were small and
of a fine yellow colour, he approached Sibylla, saying:

"Now, let me offer you a treat, in the shape of a few `ladies' fingers;'
so called, I believe, because the fruit is so small and delicate. I
scarcely think you will have ever tasted this kind of banana before,
because I believe it will not bear transportation to England without
spoiling."

Sibylla tasted the fruit, which she pronounced delicious, and then they
resumed their ramble, enjoying their bananas as they went. A little
further on they found some magnificent pine-apples, then some
granadillas, and shortly afterwards several other fruits were met with,
a few of which Ned was acquainted with, whilst others he had never seen
before, and these last they very wisely let alone.

When about half a mile distant from the beach they entered the actual
forest. Here the trees grew very closely together, whilst the entire
space between their trunks was completely choked with a dense
undergrowth of parasitic creepers, the long, thin, pliant tendrils of
which stretched from trunk to trunk, or hung in festoons from the lower
branches, and were so hopelessly tangled up together that progress was
quite impossible, except along and through such openings as were the
result of accident. Here the ground was quite bare of grass, a thick
carpet of dry twigs and fallen leaves taking its place, and the whole
aspect of the wood looked so exceedingly unpromising that Ned proposed
turning back. Sibylla, however, was not so easily discouraged; she was
very desirous of reaching the rid