It seemed that hours passed. His senses were in a maze, and the whole world was reeling and romping around him. The trees became a band of giant demons, winking, blinking, grinning at him, flourishing their arms in the air, and dancing gleefully on every side to the sound of wild music that came from far away in the sky.
Then a smaller demon darted out from amid the trees, rushed at him, clutched him, slashed, slashed, slashed on every side of him, dragged at his collar, and panted in his ear:
"White boy fight—try to git away! His hands are free."
Was it a dream—was it an hallucination? No! his hands were free! He tore at the clinging vines, he fought with all his remaining strength, he struggled to get away from those clinging things.
All the while that other figure was slashing and cutting with something bright, while the vine writhed and hissed like serpents in agony.
How it was accomplished Frank could never tell, but he felt himself dragged free of the serpent vine, dragged beyond its deadly touch, and he knew it was no dream that he was free!
A black mist hung before his eyes, but he looked through it and faintly murmured:
"Socato, you have saved me!"
"Yes, white boy," replied the voice of the Seminole, "I found you just in time. A few moments more and you be a dead one."
"That is true, Socato—that is true! I owe you my very life! I can never pay you for what you have done!"