They walked, or crept, rather, until they were tired out and then looked about.
There were giant ceiba trees, with trunks as smooth as if they had been polished by human hands, tremendous cotton-trees, their branches bowed down with air plants, palms, to which clung clusters of wild nuts, thick, bulbous trees, taller trees with buttressed roots, as if Nature knew the strain that was to be placed upon them and braced them up accordingly, trees with bark like mirrors, and trees with six-inch spike growing from the bark.
And through this thicket of trees ran creepers resembling pythons, smaller vines which tore at the boughs of the trees, and a mass of running things on the ground which caught the foot and seemed to crawl up toward the throat. By daylight it would have been weird and beautiful. At night it was uncanny and fearsome.
“We ought to be in sight of the lights by this time,” Peter said, after they had crept on and rested again and again.
“Yes,” said Jimmie, “but we ain’t. We’re lost in the jungle, if you want to know.”
CHAPTER XIII.
BOY SCOUTS TO THE RESCUE.
Ned Nestor and Frank Shaw sat on the porch, that night, for a long time after the other boys were asleep. It had been decided that Frank should stand guard until midnight, but Ned was far too anxious to attempt to sleep. The absence of Jimmie and Peter worried him, and he sat waiting for some sign of their approach until very late.