that this girl, so intimate
with nature, might know of some antidote to save me. Touching my leg,
and using other signs, I addressed her again in the Indian language.

"The snake has bitten me," I said. "What shall I do? Is there no leaf,
no root you know that would save me from death? Help me! help me!" I
cried in despair.

My signs she probably understood if not my words, but she made no reply;
and still she remained standing motionless, twisting and untwisting her
fingers, and regarding me with a look of ineffable grief and compassion.

Alas! It was vain to appeal to her: she knew what had happened, and what
the result would most likely be, and pitied, but was powerless to help
me. Then it occurred to me that if I could reach the Indian village
before the venom overpowered me something might be done to save me. Oh,
why had I tarried so long, losing so many precious minutes! Large drops
of rain were falling now, and the gloom was deeper, and the thunder
almost continuous. With a cry of anguish I started to my feet and
was about to rush away towards the village when a dazzling flash of
lightning made me pause for a moment. When it vanished I turned a last
look on the girl, and her face was deathly pale, and her hair looked
blacker than night; and as she looked she stretched out her arms towards
me and uttered a low, wailing cry. "Good-bye for ever!" I murmured, and
turning once more from her, rushed away like one crazed into the wood.
But in my confusion I had probably taken the wrong direction, for
instead of coming out in a few minutes into the open border of the
forest, and on to the savannah, I found myself every moment getting
deeper among the trees. I stood still, perplexed, but could not shake
off the conviction that I had started in the right direction. Eventually
I resolved to keep on for a hundred yards or so and then, if no opening
appeared, to turn back and retrace my steps. But this was no easy
matter. I soon became entangled in a dense undergrowth, which so
confused me that at last I confessed despairingly to myself that for
the first time in this wood I was hopelessly lost. And in what terrible
circumstances! At intervals a flash of lightning would throw a vivid
blue glare down into the interior of the wood and only serve to show
that I had lost myself in a place where even at noon in cloudless
weather progress would be most difficult; and now the light would only
last a moment, to be followed by thic