om rain or sun; but as there was no
appearance of rain, and certainly no danger of being scorched by the sun
in a forest where its glowing orb was never seen nor its rays permitted
to penetrate, a roof was not thought necessary, and Saloo's task was
simplified by leaving it a mere stretcher.

He took pains, however, that it should be both soft and elastic. The
latter quality he obtained by a careful choice of the bamboos that were
to serve as shafts; the former requisite he secured by thickly bedding
it with the lopped-off leaves, and adding an upper stratum of cotton,
obtained from a species of bombyx growing close at hand, and soft as the
down of the eider-duck.

Reclining upon this easy couch, borne upon its long shafts of elastic
bamboo, Saloo at one end and Murtagh at the other, Helen was transported
like a queen through the forest she had lately traversed as a captive in
a manner so strange and perilous.

Before the sun had set, they once more looked upon its cheering light,
its last declining rays falling upon her pale face as she was set down
upon the shore of the lake, beside that same tree from which she had
taken her involuntary departure.

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN.

THE JOURNEY CONTINUED.

The captain's daughter, with the natural vigour of youth, soon recovered
from the slight injuries she had sustained in her singular journey
through the maze of boughs. The previous perils of shipwreck, and the
various hairbreadth escapes through which she had more recently passed,
made her last danger all the lighter to bear; for by these her child's
spirit had become steeled to endurance, and her courage was equal to
that of a full-grown woman. Otherwise the fearful situation in which
she had been placed, if leaving life, might have deprived her of reason.

As it happened, no serious misfortune had befallen, and with Helen's
strength and spirits both fully restored, her companions were able on
the third day to resume their overland journey.

And, still more, they started with a fresh supply of provisions--enough
to last them for many long days. Captain Redwood and Saloo in their
hunting excursion had been very successful. The captain had not been
called upon to fire a single shot from his rifle, so that his slender
store of ammunition was still good for future eventualities. Saloo's
silent sumpits had done all the work of the chase, which resulted in the
death of a deer, another wild pig, and several large