I looked at Carleton. He nodded. "We will go with you," said I, "and trust entirely to your guidance."
"You do well," was the brief reply. "Joel," added he, turning to one of the young men, "where are the torches? We shall want them?"
"Torches!" exclaimed I.
The Yankee gave me a look, as much as to say—You must meddle with every thing. "Yes," replied he; "and, if you had ten lives, it would be as much as they are all worth to enter this swamp without torches." So saying, he struck fire, and selecting a couple of pine splinters from several lying in the boat, he lighted them, doing every thing with such extraordinary deliberation, and so oddly, that in spite of our unpleasant situation we could scarce help laughing. Meantime the boat pushed off with two men in it, leaving Carleton, myself, the old man, and another American, standing at the edge of the swamp.
"Follow me, step by step, and as if you were treading on eggs," said our leader; "and you, Jonathan, have an eye to the strangers, and don't wait till they are up to their necks in the mud to pick them out of it."
We did not feel much comforted by this speech; but, mustering all our courage, we strode on after our plain-spoken guide.
We had proceeded but a very short distance into the swamp before we found out the use of the torches. The huge trunks of the cypress-trees, which stood four or five yards asunder, shot up to a height of fifty feet, entirely free from branches, which then, however, spread out at right angles to the stem, making the trees appear like gigantic umbrellas, and covering the whole morass with an impenetrable roof, through which not even a sunbeam could find a passage. On looking behind us, we saw the daylight at the entrance of the swamp, as at the mouth of a vast cavern. The further we went the thicker became the air; and at last the effluvia was so stifling and pestilential, that the torches burnt pale and dim, and more than once threatened to go out.
"Yes, yes," muttered our guide to himself, "a night passed in this swamp would leave a man ague-struck for the rest of his days. A night—ay, an hour would do it, if your pores were ever so little open; but now there's no danger; the prairie fire's good for that, dries the sweat and closes the pores."
He went on conversing thus with himself, but still striding forward, throwing his torchlight on each log or tree trunk, and trying its solidity with his foot before he trusted his weight upon it—doing all this with a dexterity and speed that proved his familiarity with these dangerous paths.
"Keep close to me," said he to us, "but make yourselves light—as light at least as Britishers can make themselves. Hold your breath, and——ha! what is that log? Hollo, Nathan," continued he to himself, "what's come to you, man? Don't you know a sixteen foot alligator from a tree?"