eath, a sort of cloud seemed to
settle upon me, and a thousand stings, like redhot needles, were run
into my hands, face, neck--into every part of my limbs and body that
was not triply guarded by clothing. I instinctively stretched forth my
hands and closed them, clutching by the action hundreds of enormous
musquittoes, whose droning, singing noise how almost deafened me. The
air was literally filled by a dense swarm of these insects; and the
agony caused by their repeated and venomous stings was indescribable.
It was a perfect plague of Egypt.

Rowley, whose hammock was slung some ten yards from mine, soon gave
tongue: I heard him kicking and plunging, spluttering and swearing,
with a vigour and energy that would have been ludicrous under any
other circumstances; but matters were just then too serious for a
laugh. With the torture, for such it was, of the musquitto bites, and
the effect of the insidious and poisonous vapours that were each
moment thickening around me, I was already in a high state of fever,
alternately glowing with heat and shivering with cold, my tongue
parched, my eyelids throbbing, my brain seemingly on fire.

There was a heavy thump upon the ground. It was Rowley jumping out of
his hammock. "Damnation" roared he, "Where are we? On the earth, or
under the earth?--We must be--we are--in their Mexican purgatory. We
are, or there's no snakes in Virginny. Hallo, arrieros! Pablo!
Matteo!"

At that moment a scream--but a scream of such terror and anguish as I
never heard before or since--a scream as of women in their hour of
agony and extreme peril, sounded within a few paces of us. I sprang
out of my hammock; and as I did so, two white and graceful female
figures darted or rather flew by me, shrieking--and oh! in what
heart-rending tones--for "_Socorro! Socorro! Por Dios_! Help! Help!"
Close upon the heels of the fugitives, bounding and leaping along with
enormous strides and springs, came three or four dark objects which
resembled nothing earthly. The human form they certainly possessed;
but so hideous and horrible, so unnatural and spectre-like was their
aspect, that their sudden encounter in that gloomy ravine, and in the
almost darkness that surrounded us, might well have shaken the
strongest nerves. We stood for a second, Rowley and myself, paralysed
with astonishment at these strange appearances; but another piercing
scream restored to us our presence of mind. One of the women had
either trippe