THE CONVICT TRAIL 187 



guest, took pity on us, and for science' sake, 

 obtained special dispensation. One morning we 

 went out and found in our compound several 

 huge, blue-uniformed policemen, who saluted 

 and with real black magic, produced twenty- 

 convicts — negroes and coolies — armed with cut- 

 lasses. So began the second phase of what we 

 now named the Convict Trail. We had already- 

 fought our painful way through a half-mile of 

 the terrible maze, and now we heartily wel- 

 comed this new aid, whether good-natured mur- 

 derers, and burglars, or like Sippy, Slorg and 

 Slith, mere thieves. We watched them strip to 

 their black skins and begin a real assault. On 

 a front of ten to fifteen feet, the tangle fairly 

 dissolved before our eyes, and their great tough 

 palms and soles made little moment of the razor- 

 grass and thorns. In one of the slight-bodied 

 coolies, whose task was to clear away the cut 

 debris, I recognized Ram Narine, whose trial 

 had been the cause of my traveling another 

 trail. 



With my friend, Hope, an honest forger, I 

 went on far ahead and laid the course for the 

 jungle. In especially dense parts we climbed 

 to the summit of great jungle stumps and 



