Page:Through South Westland.djvu/148

76 He had no hope of getting any better, and soon after we heard he was dead. It was a lonely spot, and when the other brother was away with the mails there was no one but his friends at the Mahitahi, nine miles off, to hear whether he was alive or dead. We parted here with Miss Condon, the last link between us and the settlements behind, and striking across a green, swampy meadow, plunged once more into the bush for eight dismal miles. The track, winding ever upwards through dripping trees that towered black above our heads, seemed as if it would go on thus for ever. Range beyond range the forest-clad hills stretched away interminably. All seemed impenetrable—monotonous—divided by tumbling torrents in deep bottoms—heard but unseen. It was weird enough riding through the white wrappings of the mist, in an atmosphere heated like a fernery at Kew; but when the wan daylight died, and the narrow track grew inky black, and we had to trust the instinct of the horses to find it, then indeed it became awesome. And as we wandered on, no hut or any land-mark was there. I felt we might be lost, and wander thus for ever in these dim shades.

Anxiously we questioned, could we possibly have passed the hut? But no, our directions were plain enough: “to look for a ford above where a suspension-bridge for foot-passengers was thrown across the ravine.” I began to wish we had stayed at the Mahitahi, and wondered,