rushed away like one crazed into the wood. But in my confusion I
had probably taken the wrong direction, for instead of coming out
in a few minutes into the open border of the forest, and on to
the savannah, I found myself every moment getting deeper among
the trees. I stood still, perplexed, but could not shake off the
conviction that I had started in the right direction. Eventually
I resolved to keep on for a hundred yards or so and then, if no
opening appeared, to turn back and retrace my steps. But this
was no easy matter. I soon became entangled in a dense
undergrowth, which so confused me that at last I confessed
despairingly to myself that for the first time in this wood I was
hopelessly lost. And in what terrible circumstances! At
intervals a flash of lightning would throw a vivid blue glare
down into the interior of the wood and only serve to show that I
had lost myself in a place where even at noon in cloudless
weather progress would be most difficult; and now the light would
only last a moment, to be followed by thick gloom; and I could
only tear blindly on, bruising and lacerating my flesh at every
step, falling again and again, only to struggle up and on again,
now high above the surface, climbing over prostrate trees and
branches, now plunged to my middle in a pool or torrent of water.

Hopeless--utterly hopeless seemed all my mad efforts; and at each
pause, when I would stand exhausted, gasping for breath, my
throbbing heart almost suffocating me, a dull, continuous,
teasing pain in my bitten leg served to remind me that I had but
a little time left to exist--that by delaying at first I had
allowed my only chance of salvation to slip by.

How long a time I spent fighting my way through this dense black