Little by little, thanks to the quiet, Captain Pamphile’s nerves regained their steadiness; his blood, which had been boiling with delirium, cooled down, and his mind, as it became calm, returned from the shadowy region in which it had been wandering to “the actual world of nature; he glanced around him and found himself alone in the midst of the same dark, dreary forest as before. He pinched himself to make sure that he was really in the body, and finally took a calm view of his actual situation; tied to the tree, astride on the branch, he was, if not so comfortable as in his hammock aboard the “Roxelane,” or even on the buffalo hide of the great chief, at any rate safe from the attacks of the wolves. They, moreover, had left him, at least for a time. In looking down to the foot of the trunk the Captain thought there was something rolling and moving about around it, but as the faint noises he seemed to hear soon ceased entirely and the fancied movements ended at the same time, Captain Pamphile made rip his mind that this last fancy was only a delusion left by the impression of his horrible dream; and finally, breathless, sweating from every pore, tired to death, at last he dropped off into a slumber as deep and quiet as the precarious nature of his sleeping-place would allow.

  Captain Pamphile was aroused at sunrise by the twittering of a thousand birds of different kinds flying about gaily among the waving branches of the tree tops. He opened his eyes, and they rested on the wide arches of verdure which stretched above him, pierced at intervals by the first rays of the rising sun. He was not a devout man by nature, but he had, like all sailors, that feeling of the grandeur and power of God which is developed in the hearts of all those who work on the boundless ocean. His first thought then was to render thanks to Him who holds the world, sleeping or waking, in the hollow of His hand; then after thus instinctively keeping his eyes upturned to heaven for a short time, he turned them to earth, and at the first glance downwards all the strange events of the night became explained to him.

  For twenty paces round the oak the ground was trampled and scored by the claws of the wolves, as if a cart had been driven round and round, while at the base of the tree one of these animals, crushed and shapeless, was hanging half out of the jaws of an enormous boa constrictor, whose tail was bound about the tree seven or eight feet above the base. Captain Pamphile had been hanging between two dangers which had counteracted each other: under his feet the wolves, above his head the serpent. The hissing he had heard, the cold compression he had felt, were the sound of the serpent’s voice, and the cold of his coils winding round him. The sight of the reptile had frightened away his carnivorous foes, with the exception of one, which, entangled in the coils of the monster, had been crushed to death. The swaying of the tree which the Captain had experienced was caused by the struggles of the victim. Then, when the reptile conquered, he proceeded to devour his prey, and, as is the habit of the tribe, he swallowed half and left the rest of the body exposed, awaiting its turn for gradual deglutition, Captain Pamphile stayed for a moment looking at the sight below. Many times, in Africa or in India, he had seen similar serpents, but never under circumstances so fitted to impress him; thus, although he knew that, as the reptile was now, it was quite incapable of doing any harm to him, he considered how he might get down without descending by the trunk. Therefore he first untied the rope by which he was lashed, then, crawling backwards along the branch until it gave beneath his weight, he trusted to its spring and let himself hang by his hands so that his feet reached far enough down for him to drop without fear of serious harm. As he hoped, when he let go, he found himself safe on the ground.

  He moved off without delay, looking back more than once. He walked in the direction of the sun. There was no track in the forest to guide him, but with the hunter’s instinct and the sailor’s knowledge he needed only a glance at the earth and a look at the sky to keep his direction exactly. Thus he walked boldly on, as if he were quite at home in this vast wilderness; the farther he got into the depths of the forest, the more wild and grand its character became. Gradually the leafy vault grew thicker and thicker until it was quite impervious to the sun. The trees shot up closer and closer together, straight and upright as the shafts of pillars, and bearing like pillars a roof impervious to light. Even the wind blowing over the dome of verdure failed to penetrate the shades below; since the creation of the world all this part of the forest had slept in an eternal twilight. By the dim light of this semi-night Captain Pamphile saw large birds whose species he could not make out, and flying squirrels springing and leaping lightly and noiselessly from branch to branch. In these gloomy vistas all nature seemed to have lost its natural colour and to have assumed the tints of nocturnal moths; a hind, a hare, and a fox which fled from the sound of the steps which invaded their abode, all three seemed to have adopted the monotonous and uniform colour of the mosses over which they travelled without a sound. From time to time Captain Pamphile stopped, startled by what he saw; great yellow fungi, growing one over the other like the bosses of shields-, took shape and colour so like crouching lions that, although he knew well that the king of creation was not to be met with in this part of his domain, he still trembled at the evidence of his eyes.

  Great climbing parasitic plants, which seemed to gasp for breath, twined about the trees, grew high among their tops, hung to the branches in festoons till they touched the roof. Through this they seemed to glide like serpents, reaching up to spread their scarlet, perfumed crowns to the light of the sun, while such flowers as were obliged to bloom half-way up grew pale, scentless, sickly, as if jealous of the happiness of their friends basking in the brilliant day and in the smiles of God.

  About two o’clock Captain Pamphile was reminded by a certain feeling of emptiness in the region of his stomach that not only had he had no supper, but that his usual breakfast hour was passed. He looked around; birds flew from branch to branch and flying foxes sprang from tree to tree as if they had been accompanying him on his march; but he had neither gun nor blowpipe with which to kill them. He tried flinging stones at them, but a very few essays convinced him that the exercise was more likely to increase his hunger than to bring him the means of satisfying it. So he decided to fall back on the vegetable world in default of an animal diet. This time his search was better rewarded. After hunting about carefully for some time in the twilight of the forest he found two or three roots of the cyperus tribe and a few of the plants commonly known as Carib cabbages.

  Thus he had procured all he wanted to satisfy the first craving of hunger; but Captain Pamphile was a man who liked to provide for the future. He reflected that as soon as he had assuaged the pangs of hunger, he was likely to feel those of thirst; so he began to search for a stream, as he had searched for roots. Unfortunately water seemed harder to find than food.

  He listened carefully; no murmur reached his ear. He sniffed the air, to catch any indication of the presence of water. But there was no stir or breath of wind under this gigantic roof, vast as it was. Under its canopy there was a heavy, thick atmosphere which even the animals and the plants, obliged to grow in its shade, seemed to breathe with difficulty, as if it had scarcely vigour enough in it to support life.

  Then Captain Pamphile adopted another plan. He picked up a sharp pebble, and, instead of continuing a useless quest, he went from tree to tree, examining each trunk carefully, till he seemed to have found what he was looking for. It was a noble maple, young, supple, and strong. He encircled it with his left arm, while with his right he drove the pebble into the bark. Some drops of that precious vegetable blood, from which the Canadians make a better sugar than that of the cane, at once gushed out as if from a wound. Captain Pamphile, satsified with his experiment, sat quietly down at the foot of his victim, and began his breakfast; and when he had finished, he put his parched lips to the wound from which the sap was now running like a fountain, and then went his way fresher and stronger than ever.

  About five o’clock in the evening Captain Pamphile thought he saw some rays of light breaking through the leafy canopy; he stepped out more vigorously at the sight and reached the edge of this forest, which, like that of Dante, seemed to belong neither to life nor to death, but to some nameless power intermediate between the two. He seemed as if bathed in an ocean of light; he plunged into its waves, gilded, as they were, by the rays of the setting sun, as a diver, long held at the bottom of the sea by a branch of coral or the tentacles of a cuttlefish, when he gets free from the deadly obstacle, springs up to the surface and breathes free air again.

  He had reached one of those vast meadows interspersed like lakes of vegetation and light among the spreading forests of the New World on the far side of the clearing another line of trees stretched like a dark and solid wall, while above it again could be seen the snowy summits, floating in the last rays of the departing day, of the mountains whose chain bisects the length of the peninsula.

  The Captain looked about him with satisfaction; for he saw that he had not wandered from his path.

  At last his eye was caught by a white and wavy cloud which mounted from the depths below towards the sky. It did not take him long to discern that it was the smoke from a hut, or to decide that, whether it held friend or foe, he would march on it, the memory of the night he had just passed strongly influencing his decision.

  THE SECOND NIGHT

  Captain Pamphile found a small pathway which seemed to lead from the forest to the hut. He followed it, although it was not without a certain amount of fear lest he should encounter an adder or a rattlesnake, common reptiles in these parts, that he walked between the high and tufted grasses.

  As he drew near the smoke which guided him, he got a view of the hut situated at the junction of the plain and forest. Night overtook him before he reached it, but his path was the more easy to find and keep.

  The door was open towards the traveller, and opposite the door inside the hut burned a fire which seemed kindled as a beacon on purpose to guide his solitary steps. From time to time a form passed and repassed before the flame, showing black against the hearth.

  When somewhat nearer, he saw that it was the figure of a woman, and advanced with fresh confidence; at last he stepped on to the threshold and asked whether there was room for him by the fire which he had seen from so far and had wished for so long.

  A species of grunt, which the Captain interpreted as a sign of assent, answered his question. Accordingly, he entered without further hesitation, and sat down on an old stool which seemed to be awaiting his coming at a convenient distance from the fire.

  On the other side of the hearth, his elbows on his knees, and his head in his hands, motionless, and still as a statue crouched a young Red Indian of the Sioux tribe; his long maple-wood bow lay near, and at his feet were several pigeons and small quadrupeds which had been killed by his arrows. Neither the arrival nor the actions of Pamphile seemed to rouse him from the appearance of apathy which the savage employs to conceal his perpetual distrust of civilized man; for the young Sioux had recognized the traveller to be a European by the mere sound of his footfall. Captain Pamphile, for his part, watched him with the careful manner which a man adopts when he knows that for one chance of meeting a friend there are ten of coming across an enemy. Then, as his scrutiny showed him nothing but what he saw at first, and as that left him in uncertainty, he decided to begin a conversation with him.

  “Is my brother asleep,” he asked, “that he does not even raise his head at the entry of a friend?”

  The Indian shuddered, and without answering except in dumb show, he raised his face and pointed with his finger to one of his eyes, hanging by a sinew to its socket, and from the hole left by it a stream of blood falling down over his chest. Then, without a single word or a single groan, he let his head fall back into his hands once more.

  An arrow had just broken as he was bending his bow, and one of the splinters of the shaft had flown back into the young Indian’s eye. Captain Pamphile saw at a glance what had happened, and addressed no more questions to him, respecting the strength of mind of this heroic native of the wilderness. Then he turned again to the woman.

  “The traveller is weary and hungry: can his mother give him a meal and a bed?”

  “There is a cake baked in the embers, and in the corner there is a bear’s skin; my son may eat one and then sleep on the other.”

  “Have you nothing else?” continued Captain Pamphile, who, after the frugal meal he had made in the forest, would not have been sorry to get a better supper.

  “Certainly, I have something else,” said the old woman, coming forward with a quick step, and fixing her greedy eyes upon the gold chain by which the watch was hung, which had been returned to him by the great chief. “I have... My son has a fine chain there!... I have salt buffalo and good venison. I should be very glad to get a chain like that.”

  “Very well, bring your salt buffalo and your venison pasty,” answered Captain Pamphile, avoiding a direct promise or refusal to the request of the old woman. “Then if you have, in some corner or other, a bottle of maple rum, it would not be out of place, I think, in such good company.”

  The old woman went away, turning her head from time to time to stare at the bauble which she coveted so much; then at last, raising a reed screen, she went through into another part of the hut. Scarcely had she gone, when the young Sioux quickly raised his head.

  “Does my brother know where he is?” said he in Subdued tones to the Captain.

  “‘Faith, I do not,” said the latter carelessly.

  “Has my brother any weapon to defend himself with?” continued he, speaking still lower.

  “None,” said the Captain.

  “If that is so, let my brother take this knife and keep awake.”

  “And for yourself?” said the Captain, hesitating to accept the proffered weapon.

  “I have my tomahawk. Hush!”

  With these words, the young native dropped his head into his hands again and resumed his motionless pose, as the old woman again lifted the curtain and came in, carrying the supper. The Captain concealed the knife in his waistcloth; the old woman again looked at the watch.

  “My son,” said she, “met a white man on the warpath; he slew the white man and took his chain; then he rubbed it till he had removed the bloodstains. That is why it shines so brightly.”

  “My mother is mistaken,” said Captain Pamphile, beginning to suspect the unknown danger of which the Indian had warned him. “I ascended the Ottawa River as far as Lake Superior to hunt buffaloes and beavers; then, after collecting many skins, I exchanged half for fire-water and half for this watch, in the town.”

  “I have two sons,” said the old woman, patting the rum and meat on the table, “who have been hunting buffalo and beaver for ten years, and never have they been able to take enough skins into the town to buy a chain like that. My son says he is hungry and thirsty; my son may eat and drink.”

  “Does not my prairie brother want supper?” said Captain Pamphile to the young Sioux, drawing his stool up to the table.

  “. Pain is nourishment,” said the young hunter, without stirring: “I feel neither hunger nor thirst; I am weary and will sleep. May the Great Spirit watch over my brother!”

  “How many beaver skins did my son give for that watch?” interrupted the old woman, returning again to her favourite subject.

  “Fifty,” said Captain Pamphile, without thinking, and bravely attacking a buffalo steak.

  “I have by me ten bear skins and twenty beaver; I give them to my son for the chain alone.”

  “The chain goes with the watch,” replied the Captain. “They cannot be separated; moreover, I do not wish to part with either.”

  “Very well,” said the old woman, with the smile of a witch, “let my son keep them! Every living man is master of his own property. It is only the dead man who can own nothing.”

  Captain Pamphile gave a quick glance at the young Indian, but he seemed sound asleep. He then turned again to his supper and did as much justice to it as if he had been in a far less precarious position. Having finished his repast, he threw an armful of wood on the fire and stretched himself on the buffalo rug spread in one corner, not with a view of going to sleep, but to disarm all suspicion on the part of the old woman, who had again withdrawn to the inner room and disappeared from view.

  A few moments after Captain Pamphile had lain down, the curtain was gently lifted, and the ugly head of the hag appeared, fixing eager eyes first on one, then on the other of the sleepers. Seeing that neither moved, she came into the room and crossed to the entrance door of the hut, where she listened as if expecting some one else. But as no sound fell on her ear, she turned inwards again, and as if she feared to waste time, she took from the walls of the hut a long kitchen knife, mounted cross-legged on the frame of a grindstone, and turning it with her foot, began carefully to sharpen her weapon. Captain Pamphile watched the water falling drop by drop on the whetstone, and did not lose one of the motions which the flickering flame of the fire illuminated.

  The preliminaries spoke for themselves; the Captain furtively drew his knife from his girdle, felt the point with his finger, passed his thumb along the edge, and, satisfied with the trial, he awaited events, lying quiet and apparently in deep and calm sleep. The old woman went on with her devilish occupation, but at last she stopped suddenly and listened. The sound she heard came nearer; she got up with a spring, as if the thought of murder had restored all the activity of youth to her withered limbs, hung the knife up again on the wall, and went to the door. This time, her long-expected confederates actually arrived, and, making a sign to them to hurry, she re-entered the hut and again took a look at her guests. Neither of them had stirred, and, to all appearance, both were in a deep sleep.

  Close behind her came two young braves of tall stature and powerful build; they carried a stag on their shoulders which they had just killed. They halted and gazed silently with threatening looks at the guests whom they found in their cottage, and one of them asked his mother in English what she meant by allowing these brutes of savages to come here. The old woman put her finger to her lips; the hunters threw down their venison at Captain Pamphile’s feet. They disappeared behind the screen followed by their mother, who took with her the maple rum, which her guest had scarcely touched, and the hut was left to the two sleepers.