288 TROPIC DAYS 



Discreetly valorous, Wylo was quite enthusiastic, 

 anxious, indeed, that the quest should be accomplished 

 by an audacious white man and at no risk to himself. 

 Therefore did I accept his counsel gravely, and in part- 

 ing promised to bring down one of the hands of the 

 long-standing terror of the mountain as proof that I 

 had exacted the last penalty for many demonic deeds. 



Thus, good-humouredly, I began to clamber up the 

 ravine through a perplexity of shrubs growing among 

 loosely packed stones, thankful for strong boots and 

 hands toughened by the sun. Overhanging trees and 

 shrubs almost converted the ravine into a tunnel, but 

 here and there a greenish light wrought changeful 

 patterns on the gloomy rocks, and ferns of sombre 

 green with unfolding fronds of ruddy brown occupied 

 crannies and crowned rocks favoured by drips. No 

 sound of animal life came to my ears, but an ever- 

 increasing current of air was perceptible as the walls 

 closed in and became almost precipitous. 



The narrow footway was swept bare of loose stones 

 and vegetable rubbish, save where the wet-season 

 torrents had scooped out basins, or where a ledge of 

 resisting rock made a wet-season water fall. Such 

 places had to be discreetly scaled, for the rock was 

 worn to polished smoothness and hand and foot holds 

 were few and far between. Aerial roots, thin as whip- 

 cord, hung from the branches of trees crowding on 

 the brink of the ravine, and with tasselled terminals 

 sopped up moisture. A melancholy, humming mono- 

 tone pervaded the ravine, seeming to increase in remon- 

 strance and warning the higher I ascended. Wylo 

 had told of the noise like a steamer's whistle a long 

 way off. His local knowledge was being authenticated 

 at every step. Such a sound was almost uncouth in 

 such a locality; and there, overhanging a jutting angle 



