Fire in the Woods / Illustrated

by James De Mille

Accordingly, he now set out in the endeavor to go back on his path. No vestige of anything like a trail appeared to him, nor was there a single thing that he remembered having seen before. He walked on now for a long time, expecting every moment to reach that tangled thicket which he had considered as the chief difficulty in his way back. To his utter amazement, he came across no tangled thicket of any kind whatever. The woods, instead of growing denser, seemed to grow more open, and his progress grew easier. The woods now were precisely like what they had been daring their walk early in the day.

At first he felt only surprise; but soon surprise deepened into uneasiness, and uneasiness into anxiety. Where was he? In what direction was he going? What should he do if he were going wrong? Such were the thoughts that came to him. At length his anxiety grew so strong, and he became so convinced that his course was altogether wrong, that he stopped, and again tried to think how he might rectify his error. Once more he climbed a tree, but with the same result as before. The tops of other trees were all around. Nothing appeared which could act as a guide. Overhead, the smoky covering which overspread the skies shut out all traces of the sun; and when he descended to the ground, there began to dawn upon him the conviction, which grew stronger and stronger every moment, that he was actually lost! hopelessly and utterly lost! and that, too, in a trackless and uninhabited forest.

His only hope was, that he had not gone very far away, but was still, if not within sight of his friends, at least within hearing. So upon this he began to do what he now knew he ought to have done before. He began to call in a loud voice after Pat, and Bart, and Solomon. After each call he stopped and listened for an answer. But no answer came, and his own calls echoed far away through the forest aisles, and it was only the mocking sound of these echoes that came to his ears. Still he thought that if he persevered long enough, some response must finally come. He thought they must be near enough to hear him, but were too intent upon their fishing to think of him, or to notice his cries. Besides, he took comfort in the thought that they had not yet missed him, and consequently would not be on the alert. His cries might be faint in their ears, and not excite any notice.

The time passed, and still he kept up his cries. He called in every possible tone, and made use of every shout that his voice could compass, sometimes calling their names, sometimes uttering shrieks, and howls, and shrill yells. But all these were unavailing, and he was at last compelled to desist, from utter weariness and loss of voice.

And now he noticed that it began to grow darker. At first this discovery gave him an unpleasant shock, but immediately he began to find comfort in this circumstance.

“When it grows dark,” he thought, “they’ll miss me, and they’ll come to hunt me up. They’ll hear me if I call—or, better yet, they themselves will now do the shouting, and I’ll hear them.”

With this thought he kept perfectly still. The darker it grew, the more intently did he listen; for he was convinced that by this time they must have discovered his absence, and must be searching after him. The only thing that troubled him was the remembrance of his last words to Pat. He had told Pat that he was going down the stream, and they might make their first search after him in that direction, and this he did not think would bring them within hearing; for though he had no idea where he was, he still had every reason to believe that he was nowhere near the river.

It now grew darker and darker; yet still to his strained ears there had not come a single sound to tell him that his friends were near; not a single cry, however faint, however remote, to make known to him that they were on the search after him. As the time passed away, the long, long suspense and the protracted disappointment began to fill him with the deepest gloom—and he began to know to its fullest extent that “agony of hope deferred that maketh the heart sick.” At length it grew so dark, that even his hope, tenacious as it was, could no longer shut out from his mind the conviction that whatever anxiety his friends might feel, it was simply impossible for them at this time to make any search whatever. If they had missed him, and had sought for him, they must have gone in a direction different from that in which he had gone, and must have been altogether out of hearing.

As soon as he fully recognized this fact, all his energies gave way, and he sank down upon the ground. Not until this moment had he known how exhausted he was, and how oppressive the sultry atmosphere. Thus far his excitement, first to regain his lost path, and latterly to communicate with his friends or hear from them, had so taken possession of him, that heat or fatigue, or any other bodily sensation, was not noticed. Anxiety, eager effort, pertinacious hope,—all these had by turns influenced him; but now, as there seemed no further chance either for action or for expectation, his strength collapsed, and he gave way utterly. He lay upon the ground, his head resting upon some moss, and yielded himself up both in mind and in body to the misery of his situation. The severe exertions that he had made had utterly exhausted him; the conflict of soul that he had endured, had intensified that exhaustion; and for a long time he remained motionless, gasping for breath, and in a state of utter despair.

Now, the night came down—sultry, torrid, oppressive, suffocating. Its intense blackness covered everything in an impenetrable veil. Its effect upon the others has already been described, and upon Phil it produced results more fearful still. Had it not been for that unusual oppressiveness and that Egyptian darkness, he might have roused himself; but as it was, he gave up utterly, and remained sunk in the profoundest despair for hours.