“My word, but it is a wonder you escaped with your life,” said Sir William.
“It does seem a wonder, I confess; but it does not necessarily follow that beasts of prey were lurking about, as our friend remarked; and, indeed, such could not have been the case, or I should not have been here to tell the story.
“Utterly exhausted, I fell into a sound sleep, which lasted several hours; when awaking I found day breaking, with the wind howling through the branches overhead.
“To repair the grass sandals and load with buckshot was the work of a few minutes, when I was once more on my feet and off on the anxious journey.
“Now pushing through underwood; now carefully treading over prostrate rotten stems; here getting foul of dependent branches; then brought to a standstill by a huge patriarch of the forest.
“At length, after wandering for some time, the spoor of a musk deer was visible, and in a few minutes the little creature jumped up before me and fell dead with the contents of my gun in its side.
“Soon a fire was made in the usual native way by see-sawing a slow match in a handful of dried grass or leaves, when, cutting steaks from, the haunch and stringing them together on a twig, I roasted and devoured my kabobs with avidity, for, considering that no food had crossed my lips since the previous morning, it would be doing small justice to my appetite to say that I felt other than ravenous.
“However, the savoury repast made me feel wonderfully refreshed, and with a haunch of venison on my shoulder, I proceeded once more through the wilderness of pine trunks, looking intently in every direction for the slightest indication of a stream or a water parting.
“The absence of animal life in the depths of the forest has been frequently observed, and may no doubt be owing to the want of subsistence for the majority of herbivorous quadrupeds.
“However, as I trudged along from the denser to the more sparsely wooded parts, in expectation that a clearing would suddenly open out the country, and show the way towards the river, a musk deer would now and then spring out of some bush, and, in the intervals between its fantastic mode of jumping, would stop and turn round and stare at me in bewilderment, as if it had never seen a human being before.”