“Ah, poor deluded one,” sighed Pani; “but thus is it ever with youth; and rejecting the monitions of wisdom, suffer they must. Go on, and perish!”
Turning, the boy exclaimed—“Though I act counter to thy counsels, oh Pani, I but follow the divine instinct in me.”
“Poor youth!” murmured Babbalanja. “How earnestly he struggles in his bonds. But though rejecting a guide, still he clings to that legend of the Peak.”
The rest of the pilgrims now tarried with the guide, preparing for their journey inland.
CHAPTER III.
They Pass Through The Woods
Refreshed by our stay in the grove, we rose, and placed ourselves under the guidance of Mohi; who went on in advance.
Winding our way among jungles, we came to a deep hollow, planted with one gigantic palm-shaft, belted round by saplings, springing from its roots. But, Laocoon-like, sire and sons stood locked in the serpent folds of gnarled, distorted banians; and the banian-bark, eating into their vital wood, corrupted their veins of sap, till all those palm-nuts were poisoned chalices.
Near by stood clean-limbed, comely manchineels, with lustrous leaves and golden fruit. You would have deemed them Trees of Life; but underneath their branches grew no blade of grass, no herb, nor moss; the bare earth was scorched by heaven’s own dews, filtrated through that fatal foliage.
Farther on, there frowned a grove of blended banian boughs, thick-ranked manchineels, and many a upas; their summits gilded by the sun; but below, deep shadows, darkening night-shade ferns, and mandrakes. Buried in their midst, and dimly seen among large leaves, all halberd-shaped, were piles of stone, supporting falling temples of bamboo. Thereon frogs leaped in dampness, trailing round their slime. Thick hung the rafters with lines of pendant sloths; the upas trees dropped darkness round; so dense the shade, nocturnal birds found there perpetual night; and, throve on poisoned air. Owls hooted from dead boughs; or, one by one, sailed by on silent pinions; cranes stalked abroad, or brooded, in the marshes; adders hissed; bats smote the darkness; ravens croaked; and vampires, fixed on slumbering lizards, fanned the sultry air.