GLOOMY FACES. 
103 
down had passed within tw'O feet of my head. He now 
bit furiously right and left, tried the cutlass, which proved 
rather hard, and finally sank his fangs into his own 
broken back; and all the while it seemed that his angry, 
glittering gaze was fastened on me. I could not but 
wonder if he recognised in me the enemy who had blown 
him from his first position. 
The captain took a piece of his flesh, bruised it between 
two knives, and bound it and a piece of tobacco over the 
wound. Then he told the man, ‘There ! it’s all right now. 
That’ll draw the poison out, I knoxof and this gravely- 
asserted result, combined with the pint of gin, so restored 
the poor fellow’s nerves that he took up his carbine and 
expressed himself ready to continue the march. 
“I never saw a more gloomily-desponding set of faces 
than those which now looked tow^ard the captain. We 
were almost certain that our two men had been devoured 
by wild beasts, and now here was a third bitten by a 
snake which every one inwardly acknowledged to be 
poisonous: who could tell when this man would drop 
in convulsions, or W'ho was to be the next victim? 
Death seemed to lurk on every hand, — in the lair-like 
caves of the hill-side, in the water we stooped to drink, 
in the rotten logs under our feet, even in the foliage that 
constantly brushed our faces: it was horrible. 
“‘Come! come!’ said Stevens; ‘we must be getting 
along ; this is our last chance : we shall be broken down 
to-morrow.’ So we passed on around the right of this 
massive wall, crossed a small ridge, and commenced the 
passage of an extensive swamp, 
“ Hours more passed, and we came oxit suddenly upon 
