“Yes, that is true enough, but, luckily, I did not consider all these things. Still, I frankly confess, that the idea of being lost in a forest made my blood run cold. I could not discern any river, and the idea occurred to me that I might be walking away from it.”
“How dreadful!” exclaimed an old lady in a turban, who was listening to the narrative. “Most dreadful, indeed.”
“Yes, madam, it was not by any means agreeable, to say the least of it,” returned the professor. “Of course, I need not tell you that I did not know very well what to be at, or how to shape my course, since I was quite out of my reckoning. At length, being perplexed, and not knowing anything about the track I was following, I halted in front of a large cedar. This I determined to climb; my object in doing this was to see if I could, from the upper branches of the tree, discern any object in the distance which might serve as a guide to deliver me out of the labyrinth into which I had got entangled.”
“And did you ascend the tree?” inquired the captain.
“Most certainly I did; but I was no wiser; from its very highest branches I could only discern one unbroken forest, and so I descended with despair at my heart, and a foreboding of evil for the future, for by this time I must tell you, that I felt my physical strength giving way. What with fatigue, want of food, and the exertion of climbing the tree, I was pretty well done over.”
“A gone coon.”
“Precisely. Very much gone, and very despairing also.”
“My situation was melancholy and desperate to the last degree. If I had had any companion, anybody to share my troubles, matters would not have been so bad, but I had not a living creature, not even a dog, for my companion, and the solitude was well-nigh insupportable.”
“Oh, yes, the beauties of nature are all very well in their way,” said Smythe, “and I, for one, am a great admirer of them, but not alone. One wants company in cases of this sort. Enoch Arden felt that in his tropical island.”
“As darkness drew near,” said the professor, “while seated on a rugged piece of stone, I counted every percussion cap, bullet, and charge of powder. An idea flashed across my brain that by firing off a few shots at intervals and following each report by loud shoutings it might just happen that my companion and the native ‘shikari’ would discover my whereabouts. Indeed, a presentiment clung to me all along that the camp could not be at any very great distance. How anxiously I listened for a response after every report, whilst my throat ached again with shouting, and how I kept hoping against hope, until all hope seemed to have vanished with the daylight, and now not even the noise of an insect or the murmur of the tree-tops broke the dismal stillness. I had been on my feet for upwards of twelve hours, without intermission, and seeing it was nearly midnight I determined to give up the fruitless struggle, so stretching out my wearied limbs on the hard ground, and placing the gun by my side, I settled down, tired, hungry, and anxious, but still anticipating that the morrow would bring my deliverance.”