Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/404

 my legs. I followed headlong, broke through my bewildered followers, tore out of the little belt of jungle which we had just entered and sprinted for my life across a patch of short grass beyond. For a moment I believed myself to have given the enemy the slip, and I turned to watch my people, their burdens thrown to the winds, tumbling out of cover, yelling like madmen, and beating the air with their wildly whirling arms. Another instant and I was again put to ignominious flight. I pulled my huge felt hat from my head and flogged with it the cloudlike squadrons of my foes. All the while I ran as fast as my legs would carry me, but the bees were not to be outpaced. They plunged their stings deep into my flannel shirt and into the tough Cananore cloth of my rough jungle trousers; they slung my bare arms, and hands and neck mercilessly, and I had the greatest difficulty in warding them off my face and eyes. I was panting for breath, sweating at every pore and was beginning to feel most uncommonly done and to experience something akin to real fear, when suddenly I caught sight of the waters of the Rengai, a little river which flows through these forests to the Lipis.

"Take to the water! Take to the water!" ( shouted to my howling men, and only waiting to slip my pistol belt with its pouches for watch, compass, money, tobacco, etc., a delay for which I had to pay. a heavy price in stings, I plunged neck and crop into the shallow water. My Malays came after me helter- skelter, like a flock of sheep following at the heels of a