the high undergrowth, among those thick brambles
and interlacing creepers, across which the guariba passed like a
steeplechaser. Big roots hidden beneath the grass lay often in the way.
He stumbled over them and again started in pursuit. At length, to his
astonishment, he found himself shouting:

"Come here! come here! you robber!" as if he could make him understand
him.

His strength gave out, breath failed him, and he was obliged to stop.
"Confound it!" said he, "when I am after runaway slaves across the
jungle they never give me such trouble as this! But I will have you, you
wretched monkey! I will go, yes, I will go as far as my legs will carry
me, and we shall see!"

The guariba had remained motionless when he saw that the adventurer had
ceased to pursue him. He rested also, for he had nearly reached that
degree of exhaustion which had forbidden all movement on the part of
Torres.

He remained like this during ten minutes, nibbling away at two or three
roots, which he picked off the ground, and from time to time he rattled
the case at his ear.

Torres, driven to distraction, picked up the stones within his reach,
and threw them at him, but did no harm at such a distance.

But he hesitated to make a fresh start. On one hand, to keep on in chase
of the monkey with so little chance of reaching him was madness. On the
other, to accept as definite this accidental interruption to all his
plans, to be not only conquered, but cheated and hoaxed by a dumb
animal, was maddening. And in the meantime Torres had begun to think
that when the night came the robber would disappear without trouble, and
he, the robbed one, would find a difficulty in retracing his way through
the dense forest. In fact, the pursuit had taken him many miles from the
bank of the river, and he would even now find it difficult to return to
it.

Torres hesitated; he tried to resume his thoughts with coolness, and
finally, after giving vent to a last imprecation, he was about to
abandon all idea of regaining possession of his case, when once more, in
spite of himself, there flashed across him the thought of his document,
the remembrance of all that scaffolding on which his future hopes
depended, on which he had counted so much; and he resolved to make
another effort.

Then he got up.

The guariba got up too.

He made several steps in advance.

The monkey made as many in the rear, but this time, instead of plunging
more deeply into the forest