"Give them a prick with your bayonet—we have no time to lose here. Away, then."
We separated by twos, and while some dived at once into the long green masses of waving sugar-canes, others into palm, orange, or chestnut-groves, I, with the assistance of my Coromantee friend, endeavoured to trace further the footsteps he had detected on the flower-beds; but, alas! all vestiges of them disappeared on the gravel of the avenue. We searched long without discovering any other clue. My soul was heavy, and my heart sick to death. I heard my comrades shouting and laughing as they met each other at intervals in the bush, and envied their heedless fun as they pelted with stones or fallen nuts the chattering monkeys which sprang from tree to tree, and in turn mocked and jibed them, or swung by their claws and tails from the branches.
Suddenly, the old Coromantee (some of whose former savage instincts were here of service) detected among the long thick grass that grew by the wayside, beyond the "cabbage-walk," traces of feet and of the leaves being crushed, as if some one had been dragged over the ground there, and keenly he followed this clue or trail. Here a bruised blade of grass, there a broken twig of the wild tamarind, or a crushed gourd-vine, served to lead him on; and from point to point he traced them, with his gleaming eyes and his flat, red, dilated nostrils close to the earth, as if he scented footsteps like a Spanish blood-hound, till all clue vanished again at the deep gully in the mangrove creek, where I had seen the piragua of the pretended priest, guided under the luxuriant weeds and wild palm-branches to its place of concealment.
The Coromantee pointed to the black weedy profundity of the water below us, and was silent. The place and his action filled my mind with vague but terrible suggestions.
I knew not what to decide upon, and stood by his side, leaning on my musket, bewildered by grief for the mystery that overhung the fate of Eulalie. Suddenly a shout above roused me! It was the cheerful voice of Tom Telfer.
"Ahoy," cried he. "Hallo, Ellis,—look out—stop that fellow!"
Having descended far into the gully, I looked up, and saw a man pursued by several of the Fusileers. He and they came plunging down the steep and rocky side of the wooded chasm, through thick mangroves, and a literal jungle of twisted creepers, of wild vines, cucumbers, gourds, and ginger-roots, all flourishing in matted masses, under a shade so dark, that the wild tamarinds kept their leaves closed, as at night.
"Fire, Oliver, fire!" cried Tom, as the fugitive, who seemed like a seaman, drew a pistol from his girdle and discharged it full at my head; but I had already levelled my bayonet at him breast-high, and in my bewilderment at the same time, discharged my musket, the bullet of which whistled past his left ear. The two reports, as they rang in that deep and narrow gorge, woke a thousand reverberations, scaring from the trees the brown monkeys, the white sea-gulls who were lured there by the solitude, and clouds of little humming-birds, with their tiny pinions of crimson, gold, and emerald green. Fortunately, the fugitive's bullet missed me, and before he could cock a second pistol, I had knocked him down with my clubbed musket.
On his being collared and roughly dragged to his feet by Tom Telfer and a few others, I found myself confronted by my old acquaintance Mr. Richard Knuckleduster.
"We found him lurking under some broken palm-branches, a little way up the gulley," said Tom, breathlessly; "he bolted as soon as he saw us——"