Guessing that his real reason for declining to part
with the article, was that his master should have something to lie on,
other than the damp ground, Alan said no more at the time, which, as
will be seen, was fortunate enough for Jeekie.
For a mile or more their road ran through fantastic-looking mangrove
trees rooted in the mud, that in the mist resembled, Alan thought,
many-legged arboreal octopi feeling for their food, and tall reeds on
the tops of which sat crowds of chattering finches. Then just as the sun
broke out, strongly, cheering them with its warmth and sucking up the
vapours, they entered sparse bush with palms and great cotton trees
growing here and there, and so at length came to the borders of the
mighty forest.
Oh! dark, dark was that forest; he who entered it from the cheerful
sunshine felt as though suddenly and without preparation he had wandered
out of the light we know into some dim Hades such as the old Greek fancy
painted, where strengthless ghosts flit aimlessly, mourning the lost
light. Everywhere the giant boles of trees shooting the height of a
church tower into the air without a branch; great rib-rooted trees, and
beneath them a fierce and hungry growth of creepers.
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