With his very existence trembling in the balance with fate, what a small matter now seemed the mortgages over Wilmothurst and every consideration save the love of Bella Chevenix; and while he strove to court sleep—oblivion in that savage wilderness, where no sound met the ear save the plash of falling dew as some overcharged leaf bent downward; his whole soul was full of her image—the image of her he too probably should never, never see again.
With earliest dawn he was again afoot and seeking to get round the reach of water, but it trended away through hollows far to the north and south, yet with an aching heart he struggled manfully at his task. On every hand towered up to the height of two hundred and fifty feet or more, straight as stone columns, the cotton-trees, like the giants of primeval vegetation, and round their bases flourished the wondrous undergrowth of jungle, under which again grew white lilies, pink flowers, and dog-roses; amid which could be heard sharp trumpetings of enormous mosquitoes, with the monotonous too-too of the wild doves, which alone broke the silence of the bush.
'This silence,' wrote one who served in the campaign, 'this apparently never-ending forest, this monotony of rank vegetation, this absence of a breath of wind to rustle a leaf, becomes oppressive, and the feeling is not lessened by the dampness and heaviness of the air, and by the malarious exhalation and odour of decaying vegetation which rise from the swamps.'
The report of a musket at no great distance, followed by the noise made by some wounded animal crashing through the forest. compelled Jerry, with a heart that beat wildly with agitation and alarm, to conceal himself instantly; and he had hardly done so, when four armed Ashantees, with muscular mahogany-coloured forms, gleaming eyes, and shining teeth, passed near him and continued to hover about, as if scouting or in pursuit of game.
This compelled him to lie for hours en perdu, and evening began to close again without his having got round the reach of water that lay between him and the way to Prah, and even if he ever did reach the banks of that stream how was he to cross it? for he was not a swimmer.
On this night there was no moon, for the clouds were densely massed in the heavens; the rain fell in torrents, and though sheltered therefrom in the hollow of a rock Jerry listened to the crashing sound of the vast drops falling in a ceaseless shower, with a species of dull despair, for higher than ever would the waters rise now; his food was failing him, and he gave himself up for utterly lost.
With dawn the rain departed, and the sun exhaled a dense steamy mist from the drenched forest; but Jerry dared not leave his lair, for more than once in the distance he heard distinctly cries, strange sounds, and the explosion of firearms, showing evidently that scouting parties of Ashantees were hovering about, if it were not their whole army following up ours, which must be, he knew, at a vast distance then.
He had now come to his last biscuit, and finding all still when night fell he again addressed himself to the task of attempting to ford the water at a place where it seemed shallow. The sky was again cloudy, veiling most of the stars, and the moon had not yet risen.
At that point the forest was open for a great space, and luxuriant grass and reed-like rushes covered all the soil. Weak and weary, stiff and sore, though he had lurked in concealment all day, he staggered like a drunken man as he approached the water, but ere he could enter it some uncertain sounds made him look behind. He saw the gleam of arms, the flash of steel in the starlight; and then, coming upon him at a rush, apparently were some twenty men, emerging swiftly from the forest he had left; and though he drew his sword and grasped his revolver, resolved to sell his life bitterly and dearly, so enfeebled was his frame, and so great was the shock—the horror—he experienced at the prospect of the terrible death which so surely awaited him, after all he had endured and undergone, that he fell prone on his face and scarcely remembered more, as they closed in wild tumult around him.