"Oh, yo heard dat?" he called out. "He tink us like monkeys. Den yo say, Massa Jim, who de most handsomest, Tom or Tomkins."
But Jim was in no mood for jesting. He sent the huge Tom to the rear with an impatient movement of his hand, and then bade Sam push forward. A moment later he was following, holding his horse by the bridle. For the next half-hour silence again settled down upon the party, though in place of the sound of their voices there came the slither of hoofs on rocks, the crash of boulders falling, and now and again a sudden exclamation as a man just saved his animal from falling; for the gully which Sam had found and selected was rough, to say the least of it. Probably in the wet weather it was nothing but a watercourse. Now it displayed huge holes where the rains had washed the soil away, while every few feet the members of the party had to negotiate boulders, sometimes causing their animals to squeeze round them, and at others having to urge them over the obstruction. Finally they all arrived at the bottom, where they were thickly surrounded by jungle.
"Forward," said Jim at once, seeing the whole party mounted. "I suppose the first thing is to get back on the track, and then ride for that yellowish-white patch where we saw figures moving. Perhaps we'll get there before those rascals leave; if not, we can but follow."
Some three hours later, after making but slow progress through a jungle which was very dense in parts, and after having crossed a stream, the bed of which was soft and boggy, they came to the rocky part where no vegetation had succeeded in growing. It was almost dark then, and experience told them that within a few minutes it would be impossible to see more than a foot or two before them; for in jungle countries, even under a brilliant moon, the shadows beneath the trees are of the densest. No light can penetrate those thick masses of leaves and the thousands of gaily flowered creepers which cling to the branches. Here and there, perhaps, where the leaves give back from one another, or where a veteran of the forest has fallen to the ground, some few rays will filter through, making the trunks beneath look strangely ghostly, but for the most part there is dense darkness, the kind of darkness which one can almost feel.