that before long
we should be able to kill a deer or some large bird which would afford
us sufficient food. We now guessed that our friends must be ahead;
probably while they had been searching for us, we had been going away
from them. All we had now to do was to press steadily onwards.

We were getting desperately hungry, when I saw something move in the
grass a little in front of us. Hoping that it might be another
tortoise, I ran forward, and found that it was a large black snake. I
might have shot it; but not wishing to throw away a charge of powder, I
drew my axe, and as it turned hissing towards me, with a single stroke I
cut off its head. It was of a non-venomous species; but, oppressed by
hunger, even had it been a rattlesnake, I would have proposed to eat it.

"Here is food, and we must not be particular," I said.

Tim hesitated. "Sure, Mr. Maurice, you'll not be afther eatin' a
snake," he said.

"I could eat a toad, or a potful of caterpillars," I answered; and
having cut off a portion for Caesar, I slung the remainder over my
shoulder. We hastened on until we came to some brushwood, where we
could collect sufficient fuel to make a fire. The Indians, I knew, eat
snakes of all descriptions. We soon had it skinned and roasted; and Tim
was surprised to find it far more palatable than he had expected.

"We shall not starve if we keep our wits awake," I said; "but we must
not be over-particular as to what we eat."

Again we pushed on. I remembered the cabbage-palm, and determined to
climb the first tree of the kind we met with to obtain a cabbage. It
would be a change of diet, at all events.

I must pass over many of the incidents of our dreary march. One day a
gobbler got up, at which Tim too eagerly fired, and missed. His last
charge was thus expended. I had still one left. We saw several deer,
but even the nearest was so far off that I dared not fire.

Though we were never actually without food for more than a day, the hard
life we were leading was beginning to tell on both of us. Our shoes
were almost worn out, our clothes torn to shreds by the prickly shrubs;
and when I looked at Tim, and observed how thin and careworn he was, I
supposed that I was much in the same state.

At last we saw the sheen of water in the distance. The sight raised our
spirits. We made towards it, though it was somewhat out of our way. It
might be the Saint John, or one of its affluents, or perhaps a long