while Lizzie went noiselessly forward and reconnoitred, before beckoning to
us to advance again. The direction in which she led us lay at the base of
the hills, which on one side bounded the little plain and its bay, and
though we could form but a crude idea of where we were going, owing to the
thickness of the undergrowth, yet it was sufficiently evident that the
young lady was one of nature's tacticians, and meditated a flank blow at
her unfortunate relatives. Proceeding, we came at last within a stone's
throw of the beach, and could hear the mimic waves rolling on the sand, at
no great distance, on our right hand. Lizzie now pointed to a small belt
of vine shrub that lay in front of us, and indicated that immediately
outside it were the 'gunyahs', or huts; and, "plenty you shoot," she added
showing her white teeth as she grinned with glee at the thoughts of the
cheerful surprise she had prepared for her old companions. We were not
thoroughly on the 'qui vive', for we thought this unknown bay would be the
very spot in which the blacks were likely to seclude any prisoners from the
'Eva', and accordingly willingly followed the lithe figure of our little
guide, as she wound her way through the tangled brake, like a black snake,
and with a facility that we in vain attempted to imitate. The troopers --
who had reduced their clothing to a minimum, for their sole vestment
consisted of a forage-cap and cartridge-belt -- wound along as noiselessly
as Lizzie; but we poor whites -- with our flannel shirts and other
complicated paraphernalia that custom would not permit us to dispense with
in the matter-of-fact way they were laid aside by our sable allies -- were
getting into continual trouble; now hitched up helplessly by a lawyer vine,
whose sharp prickles, like inverted fish-hooks, rent the skin; now crawling
unsuspiciously against a tree-ants' nest, an indiscretion that the fierce
little insects visited with immediate and most painful punishment; or else,
becoming aware, by unmistakable symptoms, that we were trying to force a
passage through a stinging tree-shrub. Whenever we thus came to grief,
Lizzie would stop, turn round, and wave her arms about like a semaphore,