While it was true that for twenty-five or fifty feet it was impossible for me to get between the trees, yet it was also true that by the distance of one hundred feet there was ample space for my passage. It would have taken time, of course, to have climbed up and down between each pair of trees. Ah, greater evidence of my moon-eyed condition. By climbing to the limbs I might have run like a squirrel from one tree to another the entire distance.
It is nothing to my credit I should have been compelled to have jumped several rods through the air between two trees, for my mental sagacity had not got so far as that. I felt humiliated beyond expression. Never before had I been compelled to call on the forces of Nature to help me out of a difficulty. It would be the last time. There was consolation in that.
However, it was best as it was, for there might have been a question whether or not climbing the trees would have been leaving the path.
Nevertheless, I turned from the scene in a state of complete disgust, absolutely forgetting I had had not a morsel to eat since the prior morning. This was brought back with all its pain by the sight of the style of a house with which I had become familiar. I suffered not this time my natural diffidence to retard me from entering without ceremony and taking possession of the only chair at the table. Neither could I resist taking a short nap after the meal, for I had slept anything but comfortably; and should not have slept at all but from complete exhaustion.
XXII
I continue to proceed and outwit an immense giant; escape from a herd of angry cattle; scale a water fence; meet a friendly spider.
WHEN I arose from my siesta I observed the dame in charge of the caravansary was less dumb than the others I had met, and that her countenance bore evidence of the passing over it of a late smile or two. The faces of the others were so placid a really pleasant emotion would have slipped up on them had it attempted to cross their countenances.
These were my meditations as I passed along my way.
My late experiences had not dimmed my ardor in the least, and the refreshment both of victuals and of sleep had restored me to a very vigorous condition. So high-spirited was I that when I came to an immense giant sitting on a stump by the pathside, I was not in the least abashed or flustered. He was forming a toothpick by the aid of a pocket knife which would have answered me quite well for a sword, and he glanced at me quite merrily out of the corner of his eye.