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such intricate and evidently unfrequented parts of the forest that their
advance was comparatively slow and toilsome, but, being young and strong
and well-fed, they did not mind that. In fact Mark Breezy enjoyed it,
for the wilder and more tangled the scenery was through which they
forced their way, the more did it accord with the feelings of romance
which filled him, and the thought, too, of being guided through the
woods by an outlaw tended rather to increase his satisfaction.

"Are all the roads in your island as bad as these?" he asked, after
plumping up to the knees in a quagmire, out of which he scrambled with
difficulty.

"No, many of them are worse and some better," answered the guide; "but I
keep away from them, because the Queen's soldiers and spies are hunting
about the land just now."

"Oho!" thought Mark, "I begin to see; you are a rebel." Then, aloud,
"Your country, then, is governed by a queen?"

"Misgoverned," returned Ravonino in a tone of bitterness, which,
however, he evidently tried to restrain.

Fearing to tread again on forbidden ground, Mark forbore to put
questions about the guide's objections to his queen, but simply asked
her name, and if she had reigned long.

"Her name," said Ravonino, "is Ranavalona. She has reigned for
twenty-seven years--twenty-seven long and weary years! I was a little
boy when she usurped the throne. Now my sun has reached its meridian,
yet she is still there, a blight upon the land. But God knows what is
best. He cannot err."

This was the first reference that Ravonino had made to the Creator, and
Mark was about to push his inquiries further, when a confused sound of
voices was heard not far in advance of them.

Ravonino, who had been walking with an easy nonchalant air ahead of the
party, on a very narrow footpath, suddenly stopped to listen with a look
of anxiety. A moment later and he entered the bush that fringed the
path and overhung it.

"Come," he said in a low voice, "follow me, close!"

Without a word of explanation he strode into the dense undergrowth,
through which he went with the agility of a panther and the sinuosity of
a serpent. The others, being, as we have said, very active and strong,
kept close at his heels, though not without difficulty. Coming at last
to a place where the shrubbery was so intertwined that it was impossible
to see more than a yard or two in advance, they suddenly found
themselves stopped by a sheer precipic