They all lived, thought I, on sufferance, by the grace of the great God who made them all, and me as well. For I was one with them, even these little living things of the endless wilderness, encompassed by so many dangers, at the mercy of the great forces of Nature that might at any moment rise against us and stamp out our little lives.
And I thought, too, of Amos. In the silence and the darkness, my old dread of the man returned; and I asked myself where was he all these months, and what were he and his companions doing?
I knew that, like myself, he had been searching for the Treasure in this same Wood of the Red Fish; but I could not think that he was still in the neighbourhood. At the time, of course, I knew nothing of Forsyth's wound, which had delayed Baverstock so long; and when I afterwards came to work the matter out, I arrived at the conclusion that Amos must have left the wood on the very night when I encountered the anaconda. He then returned to the temple, and, finding both the ruins and the village quite deserted, gave unholy vent to his wrath by burning everything that fire could touch. He then came back upon his own tracks, by way of the suspension bridge, drawn to the Red Fish like steel to a magnet, for the man's soul itself was magnetised by gold.
And all this time was I searching in the wood. For ten days I roamed here and there, living upon wild fruits and berries, and the birds I slew with my blow-pipe. Atupo had given me certain vague directions, which had seemed clear enough to me at the time. However, the man's knowledge of our language was but imperfect, and the wood itself a veritable maze, a labyrinth of shallow, twisting tunnels, from which the sunlight was eternally shut out.
I wandered daily, lost in very truth, and came often to the Glade of Silent Death, near which place I would never venture to sleep for fear of the great serpent that I knew lay somewhere in the pool.
On the tenth night of my wanderings, I received something in the nature of a shock. I had made my camp-fire somewhat earlier than was my wont, and a small, gay-feathered bird that I had shot and plucked was roasting over the red-hot charcoal, when, of a sudden, a shot from a rifle rang out in the woods not far from where I was.
I sprang to my feet, in a high state of alarm, and kicked the fire broadcast, for I had gone barefooted for so long that the soles of my feet were like leather. And even as I did so, several other shots were fired in quick succession.
I ate my bird half cooked--for I was hungry--and sat in the darkness for hour upon hour, certain that Amos himself was near at hand, and filled with apprehension.
I had a good mind that night to give up my quest, to return to the grassland, where I could breathe the open air and feel the warmth of Heaven's sun upon me, hoping that thence I might somehow find my way back to the abodes of civilised men. I was sick at heart for want of the sound of a human voice and the sight of those I loved.
What would be my fate in that dark wilderness, armed only with my blow-pipe, if I should fall into the hands of men like Amos Baverstock and Trust? In my thinking, the shots that I had heard could have been fired by no one else. And yet, of my own free will, for three days longer I delayed within the wood; and now, when I can look back upon those wild, adventurous days, I am devoutly thankful that I did.