"What," returned Milton Rhodes, "would that have been but postponing the inevitable? For into these trees we should have had to go, sooner or later, and the thing would have been watching for us just the same. As you say, we had made a good journey for the day; well, aren't we making it better?"
"It isn't ended yet."
"This place, after all, Bill, may not be so bad as it seems."
"Well, there is one consolation," I remarked: "there is no danger of our starving to death in this lovely Dante's Inferno. Look at all the fruit and nuts and things."
"Yes. From that point of view, the place is a veritable Garden of the Hesperides."
At length we reached the stream, considerably larger than I had expected to find it. At this point where we struck it, the water was deep, the current a gentle one. The rich forest growth hung out over the surface for some distance. There was a soft rustling of leaves, for some of the branches dipped into the water and were swaying to and fro. This and the faint, melancholy whisper of the gliding element were all that broke the heavy, deathlike stillness. It was a placid, a lovely scene.
The attainment of this their objective seemed to give our Dromans much pleasure; but, save for the fact that there was now no danger of our perishing of thirst, I could not see that we were any better off than we had been.
I thought that this would be the end of our march, now a long one indeed. But the Dromans merely paused, then started down the stream; and, of course, along with them went Rhodes and myself.
At times we had literally to force our way through the dense and tangled undergrowth; then we would be moving through lovely aisles—
"And many a walk traversed