"Oh papa! I have heard nothing like it since the day of the hurricane."
"We now came upon some creeping plants."
"That is quite true; but it is an incident to which you will soon be accustomed, for the first storm will probably overthrow many of these formidable giants. The tiger is frightened too, for he has made off, you see. Try and go to sleep, my dear boy, for to-morrow we may perhaps have to walk a long way."
I leaned my head against that of the child, who soon dropped asleep. The forest had resumed its majestic silence, which was only disturbed by the distant fall of another and another colossus.
My anxiety was extreme, and though I knew our friends would range every way in quest of us, we might so readily wander in opposite directions, as we had no ammunition to signal with should they come near.
Towards morning, exhausted with fatigue, I fell asleep, and dreamt, in my feverishness, that we were nearly at the end of our journey, and close to Orizava, in sight of home. A slender thread of light announcing the dawn of day awoke us, and we arose.
The clearness of day now broke upon us. For a quarter of an hour I kept my ear to the earth, listening in the hopes of hearing some signal.
Again and again I cocked my gun with the intention of firing, and as regularly I laid it down, when I reflected I might only be throwing away my ammunition.
At length I took observations of the bearings of the ground, and followed, as far as possible, our trail of the day before.