as if they were the heart of the maze at Hampton Court. They were
the heart of the maze for him, anyhow; he sought them as straight as a
crooked road would carry him; and, turning a final corner, he beheld,
for the first time, the foundations of those towers of vegetation he had
as yet only seen from above, as they stood waist-high in the woodland.
He found the suspicion correct which supposed the tree branched from one
great root, like a candelabrum; the fork, though stained and slimy with
green fungoids, was quite near the ground, and offered a first foothold.
He put his foot in it, and without a flash of hesitation went aloft,
like Jack climbing the Bean stalk.

Above him the green roof of leaves and boughs seemed sealed like
a firmament of foliage; but, by bending and breaking the branches
to right and left he slowly forced a passage upward; and had at last,
and suddenly, the sensation coming out on the top of the world.
He felt as if he had never been in the open air before.
Sea and land lay in a circle below and about him, as he sat
astride a branch of the tall tree; he was almost surprised to see
the sun still comparatively low in the sky; as if he were looking
over a land of eternal sunrise.

"Silent upon a peak in Darien," he remarked, in a needlessly
loud and cheerful voice; and though the claim, thus expressed,
was illogical, it was not inappropriate. He did feel as if
he were a primitive adventurer just come to the New World,
instead of a modern traveler just come from it.

"I wonder," he proceeded, "whether I am really the first that ever
burst into this silent tree. It looks like it. Those--"