"That even in savage bosoms
There are longings, yearnings, strivings
For the good they comprehend not;
That feeble hands and helpless,
Groping blindly in the darkness,
Touch God's right hand...
And are lifted up and strengthened".
————
Roland slumbered quietly, and the day went on apace.
He slept so peacefully that she hardly liked to arouse him.
The little red book dropped from her hand and fell on the moss, and her thoughts now went far, far away adown the mighty river that flows so sadly, so solemnly onwards to the great Atlantic Ocean, fed on its way by a hundred rapid streams that melt in its dark bosom and are seen nevermore.
But it was not the river itself the little maiden's thoughts were dwelling on; not the strange wild birds that sailed along its surface on snow-white wings; not the birds of prey--the eagle and the hawk--that hovered high in air, or with eldritch screams darted on their prey like bolts from the blue, and bore their bleeding quarries away to the silent forest; not even the wealth of wild flowers that nodded over the banks of the mighty stream.
Her thoughts were on board a tall and darksome raft that was slowly making its way seaward to distant Pará, or in the boats that towed it. For there was someone on the raft or in those boats who even then might be fondly thinking of the dark-haired maiden he had left behind.
But Peggy's awakening from her dream of romance, and Roland's from his slumber, was indeed a terrible one.
[CHAPTER II--STRANGE ADVENTURES IN THE FOREST--LOST!]
Fierce eyes had been watching the little camp for an hour and more, glaring out on the sunny glade from the dark depths of a forest tree not far off; out from under a cloudland of waving foliage that rustled in the balmy wind. Watching, and watching unwaveringly, Peggy, while she read; watching the sleeping Roland; the great wolf-hound, Brawn; and watching the ponies too.