ntic and excitable. In fact, many of us
as we grow older recall our sensations, acts, and deeds, felt and
performed during that strange delirium, with something like a smile upon
our lips, though at the time every reader will agree with me I was
somewhat of a goose.

I was romantic enough, and could only see the golden side; but there was
a future before me such as I could not dream of--a reverse, terrible,
thrilling, and enough, could I have penetrated the unknown, to have made
me turn shuddering away, daring not, for the sake of others, to
prosecute searches whose results would have been too terrible to
contemplate.

Rousing myself from my reverie, with my mind fully made up as to my
future proceedings, I looked round, to find that I was but a very short
distance from the hacienda, in a beautiful part of the forest that my
uncle had as yet spared, but which he talked of, before long, clearing
and adding to the plantation which it bounded.

I walked on for a dozen yards, parting the undergrowth as I went,
walking cautiously now, for I had suddenly awakened to the fact that
there might be danger in every bush or tuft of luxuriant, reedy grass;
but there was, I knew, a beaten track a little farther on which led to
the plantation, through which I meant to return.

And then, fifty yards through the dense vegetation, I came upon a
creek--a mere ditch--leading to the river, half full of marshy growth,
when, walking back a few yards for impetus, I ran from the bank, and was
in the act of leaping the creek when every nerve seemed to thrill with a
horrible sense of chilling dread, as beneath my feet there was a rushing
rustling noise, mingled with the splashing of mud and water, the reedy
grass bent and waved in different directions, and, though invisible to
me, it was evident that some hideous beast--reptile, or whether serpent
or cayman I could not tell--was retreating towards the river, perhaps
only to turn upon me the next moment.

The danger was not visible; but unseen perils are sometimes more
dreadful than those we meet face to face, when the imagination does not
magnify the horror.

At any rate, with my heart beating heavily I alighted amongst the grass
on the other side, dashed on, and a few minutes after was in the track,
down which I turned, but only to stop spell-bound the next minute, as I
reached a flowery opening across which lay the decaying huge trunk of a
large fallen tree.

The place was a dense thi