en, to
tell me of his own affairs.

"My back's a deal better," he whispered. "I've been able to rest it
lately--waiting for you, and it makes it stronger, you know, and--"

"Silence, Penny!" said the doctor reprovingly, and Jack fell back a few
feet; and we travelled on, till suddenly, instead of treading upon the
soft decayed-leaf soil of the forest, I found that we were rustling
among bushes down a steep slope. Then we were amongst loose stones, and
as the darkness was not quite so dense I made out by sight as well as by
the soft trickling sound, that a little rivulet was close to our feet.

This we soon afterwards crossed, and bidding me stoop the doctor led the
way beneath the dense bushes for some little distance before we seemed
to climb a stony bank, and then in the intense darkness he took me by
the shoulders and backed me a few steps.

"There's quite a bed of branches there," he said aloud. "You can speak
out, we are safe here;" and pressing me down I sat upon the soft twigs
that had been gathered together, and Jack Penny came and lay down beside
me, to talk for a time and then drop off to sleep, an example I must
have followed. For all at once I started and found that it was broad
daylight, with the loud twittering song of birds coming from the bushes
at the entrance of what seemed to be a low-roofed extensive cave, whose
mouth was in the shelving bank of a great bluff which overhung a
silvery-sounding musical stream.

Some light came in from the opening; but the place was made bright by
the warm glow that came from a kind of rift right at the far end of the
cave, and through this was also wafted down the sweet forest scents.

"Jimmy's was a lucky find for us," said the doctor, when I had partaken
of the food I found they had stored there, and we had talked over our
position and the probability of my belief being correct. "It is shelter
as well as a stronghold;" and he pointed to the means he had taken to
strengthen the entrance, by making our black followers bind together the
branches of the tangled shrubs that grew about the mouth.

In the talk that ensued it was decided that we would wait a couple of
days, and then go by night and thoroughly examine the village. Jimmy
would be able to point out the hut where my father was confined, and
then if opportunity served we would bring him away, lie hidden here for
a few days till the heat of the pursuit was over, and then escape back
to the coast.

I