68 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



" Then changed you they have," cried I, with a 

 wild laugh. " Good God ! have they scalped him 

 alive, or what? That is not Eowley." 



The Mexican, who had gone to give some drink to 

 the creature claiming to be Eowley, now opened a 

 valise that lay on the ground a short distance off, and 

 took out a small looking-glass, which he brought and 

 held before my face. It was then only that I began 

 to call to mind all that had occurred, and understood 

 how it was that the mask of human flesh lying near 

 me might indeed be Eowley. He was, if anything, 

 less altered than myself. My eyes were almost 

 closed ; my lips, nose, and whole face swollen to an 

 immense size, and perfectly unrecognisable. I in- 

 voluntarily recoiled in dismay and disgust at my own 

 appearance. The horrible night passed in the ravine, 

 the foul and suffocating vapours, the furious attack of 

 the mosquitoes the bites of which, and the conse- 

 quent fever and inflammation, had thus disfigured us 

 all recurred to our memory. But the women, the 

 fight with the monsters beasts Indians whatever 

 they were, that was still incomprehensible. It was 

 no dream : my back and shoulders were still smarting 

 from the wounds that had been inflicted on them by 

 the claws of those creatures, and I now felt that 

 various parts of my limbs and body were swathed in 

 wet bandages. I was mustering niy Spanish to ask 

 the Mexican who still stood by me for an explana- 

 tion of all this, when I suddenly became aware of a 



