Only too soon I became aware that my inquietude was justified because, in the meantime, night had fallen and neither the lightning nor my matches were of any avail in showing me the way I ought to follow.
Then I was seized with that awful anguish I had experienced on the other occasion and which has so direful an effect upon the spirit as to render one incapable of even thinking.
I turned this way and that without any notion hardly of what I was seeking.
I stumbled over the long grasses and more than once rolled down a hollow full of nettles and thorns, which stung and scratched my face and hands horribly. I scrambled out, however, almost directly, animated by a fiery instinct of self preservation, and pulling out from my flesh the thorns that hurt me most, I recommenced, blood-stained and unnerved, to grope my way in the dark.
In one of my tumbles I felt a huge beast gallop over my body. What was it? I thought it must be a wild-boar.
I remained there some time on the ground smarting and exhausted. My strength and energy seemed to diminish every minute and the mad, desperate thought flashed across my mind to not move any more but just lie there under the rain to wait for death or daylight.
From the tall trees came peltering down upon me shells, husks and fruit, the remains of a feast the monkeys were having upon the thick boughs that sheltered them from the bad weather, and from afar came a low, dull sound like the deep rumbling noise that often precedes Nature's tragedies.
Life in the jungle had taught me what that fearful roar meant. It was caused by the clamouring cries of thousands of wild beasts, rushing forth from their dens and hastening towards the bloody convention which every night they hold.
It gave me the force to make a supreme effort. I got up and staggered forward, not knowing where I was going and trusting purely to chance.
But in the end I was obliged to give myself up for lost and every hope of escaping my horrible fate forsook me. I could no longer shout but it would have been useless, for the ever-increasing din would have prevented others, and me, from hearing anything else. I managed to prop myself up against a rock and with all the strength that was left me, I clung to it with one hand whilst with the other I turned up the collar of my thin, linen jacket and tried to cover my face.