t gasps. The
perspiration streamed from him, but he held on until Pita came to a halt.

"We will stop till you get your breath again, senor. There is no fear of
them to-night, but we must hold on until morning, so as to get as long a
start as possible before they can find our track and take up the pursuit.
Until we have light we can do nothing to disguise our trail, but we will
stop frequently, and go at a slower pace, so that you shall not become
exhausted. It would never do to wear you out at the beginning of our
journey."

All through the night the march was continued. They stopped at frequent
intervals for a minute or two, and Stephen found himself able to keep up
with them without any great difficulty, although long before morning broke
he felt terribly exhausted. At last Pita said:

"In two hours it will be dawn. We will wait here, senor, and you can take
a short sleep before we go on again."

Without a word Stephen dropped on to the ground, and almost
instantaneously went off to sleep. When he awoke it was broad daylight.
Hurka was beside him.

"We must be moving now, senor," he said. "Pita has been away for half an
hour, and has just signalled to me to join him."

Stephen rose to his feet heavily. He felt stiff and sore all over, but the
feeling wore off after he had walked a short distance. From time to time a
cry like the note of a bird was heard, and towards this they directed
their steps. They found Pita standing by the edge of a stream some fifteen
yards wide, and without a word he entered the water as they came up and
began to walk down it.

"I should have thought," Stephen said to Hurka, "that it would be safer to
go the other way for a bit, because they would naturally suppose that we
should come this way."

"That is just the reason why Pita is leading us down it," he said. "It is,
of course, the way we should take to get down to the Madeira, and because
it is so they will think that we would surely go the other in order to
deceive them. No doubt some will go up and some will go down, but in that
case we shall not have so many to fight."

A mile further another stream fell into that which they were following,
and they turned up this and walked until they came to a bough some eight
feet above the water. Pita sprung up and hauled himself on to it, then he
leaned over and stretched his hands down to Stephen, and, with a strength
the latter had hardly given him credit for, hauled him up beside him,