berless stars; but when they got among the trees
the blue, dusky sky and brilliant stars disappeared from sight, as
if a black cloud had come over them, so dark was it in the forest.
For the trees were very tall and mingled their branches overhead;
but they had got into a narrow path known to them, and moving slowly
in single file, they kept on for about two hours longer, then
stopped and dismounted under the great trees, and lying down all
close together, went to sleep. Martin, lying among them, crept under
the edge of one of the large skin robes and, feeling warm, he soon
fell fast asleep and did not wake till daylight.

[Illustration: ]

CHAPTER VII

ALONE IN THE GREAT FOREST

Imagine to yourself one accustomed to live in the great treeless
plain, accustomed to open his eyes each morning to the wide blue sky
and the brilliant sunlight, now for the first time opening them in
that vast gloomy forest, where neither wind nor sunlight came, and
no sound was heard, and twilight lasted all day long! All round him
were trees with straight, tall grey trunks, and behind and beyond
them yet other trees--trees everywhere that stood motionless like
pillars of stone supporting the dim green roof of foliage far above.
It was like a vast gloomy prison in which he had been shut, and he
longed to make his escape to where he could see the rising sun and
feel the fanning wind on his cheeks. He looked round at the others:
they were all stretched on the ground still in a deep sleep, and it
frightened him a little to look at their great, broad, dark faces
framed in masses of black hair. He felt that he hated them, for they
had treated him badly: the children had taken his clothes, compelling
him to go naked, and had beaten and bruised him, and he had not been
pitied and helped by their elders. By and by, very quietly and
cautiously he crept away from among them, and made his escape into
the gloomy wood. On one side the forest shadows looked less dark
than the other, and on that side he went, for it was the side on
which the sun rose, and the direction he had been travelling when he
first met with the savages. On and on he went, over the thick bed of
dark decaying leaves, which made no rustling sound, looking like a
little white ghost of a boy in that great gloomy wood. But he came
to no open place, nor did he find anything to eat when hunger
pressed him; for there were no sweet roots and berries there, nor any
plant that he h