mangrove thicket, where I had observed the object a moment before. I
had not proceeded fifty yards when I saw the folly of this movement. I
found myself in the midst of a labyrinth, dark and dismal, surrounded by
a wall of leaves and brambles. The branches of the mangroves, rooted at
their tops, barred up the path, and vines laced them together.

"If they be spies," thought I, "I have taken the worst plan to catch
them. I may as well go through now. I cannot be distant from the rear
of the camp. Ugh! how dismal!"

I pushed on, climbing over fallen trunks, and twining myself through the
viny cordage. The creepers clung to my neck--thorns penetrated my
skin--the _mezquite_ slapped me in the face, drawing blood. I laid my
hand upon a pendent limb; a clammy object struggled under my touch, with
a terrified yet spiteful violence, and, freeing itself, sprang over my
shoulder, and scampered off among the fallen leaves. I felt its fetid
breath as the cold scales brushed against my cheek. It was the hideous
iguana.

A huge bat flapped its sail-like wings in my face, and returned again
and again, breathing a mephitic odour that caused me to gasp. Twice I
struck at it with my sword, cutting only the empty air. A third time my
blade was caught in the trellis of parasites. It was horrible; I felt
terrified to contend with such strange enemies.

At length, after a continued struggle, an opening appeared before me--a
glade; I rushed to the welcome spot.

"What a relief!" I ejaculated, emerging from the leafy darkness.
Suddenly I started back with a cry of horror; my limbs refused to act;
the sword fell from my grasp, and I stood palsied and transfixed, as if
by a bolt from heaven.

Before me, and not over three paces distant, the image of Death himself
rose out of the earth, and stretched forth his skeleton arms to clutch
me. It was no phantom. There was the white, naked skull, with its
eyeless sockets, the long, flesh-less limbs, the open, serrated ribs,
the long, jointed fingers of Death himself.

As my bewildered brain took in these objects I heard a noise in the
bushes as of persons engaged in an angry struggle.

"Emile, Emile!" cried a female voice, "you shall not murder him--you
shall not!"

"Off! off!--Marie, let me go!" was shouted in the rough accents of a
man.

"Oh, no!" continued the female, "you shall not--no--no--no!"

"Curses on the woman! There, let me go now!"

There was a sound as of so