"Imprimis, this creek runs eastward of the bluff I steered by. Wherefore 'tis our first business to lay our course westward and cut off that headland, as you might say."
"But can you be sure of setting your course aright?"
"There's the sun above us, and we may catch a glimpse of him here and there among the trees. And 'tis certain we shall encounter brooks wandering like lost children in the forest; only though they do seem lost, we know, being men, and in our right minds, that they be running all the while to the sea. By this and by that we'll come at the place we steer for."
"And who shall go on this inland voyage of discovery?"
"Why, you and me, sir. God-a-mercy, the very words of my dream! 'You and me, Haymoss, you and me!' 'Tis a good sign, for sure. The maroons shall lie hid in the creek, and keep ward over the prisoners."
"But can we trust them? Will they not, having arrived on the mainland, act after their own devices and depart?"
"'Tis a risk, in truth; but I will speak to them with all gravity, and bring to their mind the Spaniards' treasure, and the stripes they suffered in bondage. We will see if there be faith in their black blood."
After a conversation with the maroons, Turnpenny announced that they had agreed to remain in the creek until nightfall. If the white men had not returned then, they would hold themselves free to act as they pleased. Then Dennis and the sailor set off on their scouting expedition.
At the edge of the forest the trees grew fairly wide apart, and the canopy above admitted a few rays which lay as bright spots on the floor of dead leaves. But as the two adventurers proceeded the forest became thicker and thicker, until they walked in a dim twilight. Well covered with vegetation as Maiden Isle had been, Dennis had never imagined anything like the dense woodland through which he was now slowly making his way. It steamed with moisture; the din of early morning had given place to a mysterious stillness; birds and animals were quiet or asleep; and if the silence was broken at rare moments by the long howl of a monkey, the melancholy sound did but enhance the impression of utter solitude. Turnpenny led the way with great wariness; his former experiences of forest life warned him of dangers that might lie in wait—a slumbering jaguar which their footfall might disturb, a snake so cunningly marked that it was indistinguishable from the tree about which it was coiled. Several times he halted, in doubt of his bearings. Once, when he confessed himself beaten, he climbed with a mariner's agility a towering trunk, and declared when he descended that from its top he had caught a glimpse of the open sea and so learnt the general direction in which to go.
They came at length to a narrow open space, where apparently trees had been felled at no very distant date. Turnpenny was pointing out a hairy sloth hanging under a branch like a nest of termites, when Dennis touched him on the arm and bade him look across the glade.