that we were travelling towards some black
village, or that a hunting party was in our neighbourhood, and though
these people might have been friendly, we took the advice of our black
companions and avoided them, either by making a detour or by waiting in
hiding till they had passed.

Water was plentiful, and Jimmy and Ti-hi never let us want for fruit,
fish, or some animal for food. Now it would be a wild pig or a small
deer, more often birds, for these literally swarmed in some of the lakes
and marshes round which we made our way.

The country was so thinly inhabited that we could always light a fire in
some shut-in part of the forest without fear, and so we got on, running
risks at times, but on the whole meeting with but few adventures.

After getting over the exertion and a little return of fever from too
early leaving his sick-bed of boughs, Mr Francis mended rapidly, his
wound healing well and his mind daily growing clearer. Every now and
then, when excited, he had relapses, and looked at us hopelessly,
talking quickly in the savages' tongue; but these grew less frequent,
and there would be days during which he would be quite free. He grew so
much better that at the end of a month he insisted upon taking his place
at one of the bamboos, proving himself to be a tender nurse to our
invalid in his turn.

And all this time my father seemed to alter but little. The doctor was
indefatigable in his endeavours; but though he soon wrought a change in
his patient's bodily infirmities to such an extent, that at last my
father could walk first a mile, then a couple, and then ease the bearers
of half their toil, his mind seemed gone, and he went on in a strangely
vacant way.

As time went on and our long journey continued he would walk slowly by
my side, resting on my shoulder, and with his eyes always fixed upon the
earth. If he was spoken to he did not seem to hear, and he never opened
his lips save to utter a few words in the savage tongue.

I was in despair, but the doctor still bade me hope.

"Time works wonders, Joe," he said. "His bodily health is improving
wonderfully, and at last that must act upon his mind."

"But it does not," I said. "He has walked at least six miles to-day as
if in a dream. Oh, doctor!" I exclaimed, "we cannot take him back like
this. You keep bidding me hope, and it seems no use."

He smiled at me in his calm satisfied way.

"And yet I've done something, Joe," he said. "We