"A little further, Lady Biddy—a little further," says I cheerfully.
"Yes, Benet," says she, hopefully still, yet with difficulty from the shortness of her breathing. "I can run a good way yet."
Now glancing aside I saw a hillside where the trees were of a prodigious height, and so close together that their branches mingled in one wide-spreading solid canopy, and loth I was to pass them by, for I knew by my experiences on the Oronoque that beneath these trees nothing grew but toadstools and such growth for the want of light, and there might we have run with ease as far as that sort of trees extended, but the thicket on the hither side was impassable, so there was no help for it but to run on.
Presently I saw Lady Biddy bend her head, biting her nether lip with her teeth, as if to control some pain, and this, together with hearing the report of a musket in our rear, showing that our pursuers were getting within gunshot of us, did work me up with desperation, so that I was minded to catch my companion in my arms, and essay whether I might not that way struggle through the thorny barrier. And this course I resolved to take if in fifty paces no less desperate measure was to be found.
Fifty paces were covered, and yet there was no sign of any opening in that rank growth; then I added another ten; and after that, ten more; when, casting my eye again upon Lady Biddy, I saw in her despairing eyes that she could go no further.
I stopped, and, leaning upon my shoulder for support, she gasps—
"One moment, Benet. I shall be better in a moment."
I looked back (yet in a manner not to affright the poor girl), and saw the seamen doggedly running on, but no nearer, Heaven be thanked, which surprised me, although each man was encumbered with his musket and other arms. But seeing us at a stand they set up a shout, and began to mend their pace.
"Now," said Lady Biddy, and again we started forward.
Hardly had we made half a dozen yards when I stopped her with a cry of joy, for there, lying flush with the outlying growth of what I term the thicket, was a great mass of dry, brown, broad leaves, which I knew for the head of a cabbage-tree, which, though it promised nothing to an inexperienced eye, did to mine betoken a means of crossing the thicket by its stem, which is never less than 150 feet long in one falling to decay, and is more often 250 feet. And happily this tree in falling athwart the thicket had struck upon a rock, so that it was lifted well up above the more tangled growth.