but when I came to I was on my back on deck, and Jessie was looking after
me. I remember wondering then how a big, fleshy woman like her could
stand it, and felt almost as sorry for her as I did for myself."

"Did she look ill?"

"Jessie? Oh, I don't know. She looked as if she might have been having
a merrier time. Well, we left Tabacol, and I felt we were leaving
everything we knew behind us. I got the idea, in the first day on the
river, that we were quite lost, and were only pushing the old _Cygnet_
along to keep up our spirits. We crawled close under the walls of the
forest. Our vessel looked about as large and important as a leaf adrift.
That place is so immense that I saw we were going to make no impression
on it. It wouldn't matter to anybody but ourselves if it swallowed us
up. On the first day I saw a round head and two yellow eyes in it,
watching us go by. The thought went through my mind: 'a jaguar.' The
watching face vanished on the instant, and I always felt afterwards that
the forest knew all about us, but wouldn't let us know anything. I got
the idea that it wasn't of the least use going on, unless we didn't
intend to treat the job seriously. If we were serious about it then it
was evident we ought to turn back."

"Didn't the skipper ever say what he thought of it?"

"What could Purdy think, or do? There was that river, and the forest on
both sides of it, and the sun over us. Nothing else but the quiet; and
we didn't know where our destination was. We anchored every evening,
close to the bank. One evening, as we anchored, a shower of arrows
clattered about us. There was just one shower, out of the trees, or out
of the clouds."