Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/307

 and the sparks of a thousand wheeling fire-flies shed a light about his path; but these advantages only served to point out the dangers and difficulties of his progress. With their dubious help, every creeper thicker than ordinary assumed the appearance of some glistening snake, swinging from the branch in a grim repose that it was death to disturb; every rotten stump leaning forward in its decay, draped with its garment of trailing parasites, took the form of a watchful savage, poising his gigantic form in act to strike; while a wild boar, disturbed from his lair between the roots of an enormous gum-tree, to shamble off at a jog-trot, grumbling, in search of thicker covert, with burning eye, gnashing tusks, and most discordant grunt, swelled to the size of a rhinoceros. Slap-Jack's instincts prompted him to salute the monster with a shot from one of the pistols that hung at his belt, but reflecting on the necessity of caution, he refrained with difficulty, consoling himself by the anticipation of several days' leave ashore, and a regular shooting party with his mates, in consideration of his services to-night.

Thus he struggled on, breathless, exhausted, indefatigable—now losing himself altogether, till a more open space in the branches, through which he could see the stars, assured him that he was in a right direction—now obtaining a glimpse of some cane-piece, or other clearing, white in the tender light of the young moon, which had already risen, and thus satisfying himself that he was gradually emerging from the bush, and consequently nearing the shore—now tripping over a fallen tree—now held fast in a knot of creepers—now pierced to the bone by a prickly cactus, torn, bleeding, tired, sore, and drenched with perspiration, but never losing heart for a moment, nor deviating, notwithstanding his enforced windings, one cable's length from the direct way.

Thus at last he emerged on a clearing already trenched and hoed for the reception of sugar-canes, and, to his infinite joy, beheld his own shadow, black and distinct, in the trembling moonlight. The bush was now behind him, the slope of the hill in his favour, and he could run down, uninterrupted, towards the pale sea lying spread out like a sheet of silver at his feet. He crossed a road here that he