four porters, laden with a small tent,
some tinned provisions and brandy, ammunition, a box containing beads,
watches, etc. for presents, blankets, spare clothing and so forth. These
were stalwart fellows enough, who knew the forest, but their dejected
air showed that now they had come face to face with its dangers, they
heartily wished themselves anywhere else. Indeed, notwithstanding their
terror of Jeekie's medicine, at the last moment they threw down their
loads intending to make a wild rush for the departing boat, only to be
met by Jeekie himself who, anticipating some such move, was waiting for
them on the bank with a shotgun. Here he remained until the canoe was
too far out in the stream for them to reach it by swimming. Then he
asked them if they wished to sit and starve there with the devils he
would leave them for company, of if they would carry out their bargain
like honest men?

The end of it was they took up their loads again and marched, while
behind them walked the terrible and gigantic Jeekie, the barrels of
the shotgun which he carried at full cock and occasionally used to
prod them, pointing directly at their backs. A strange object he looked
truly, for in addition to the weapons with which he bristled, several
cooking-pots were slung about him, to say nothing of a cork mattress
and a mackintosh sheet tied in a flat bundle to his shoulders, a box
containing medicines and food which he carried on his head, and fastened
to the top of it with string like a helmet on a coffin, an enormous
solar-tope stuffed full of mosquito netting, of which the ends fell
about him like a green veil. When Alan remonstrated with him as to the
cork mattress, suggesting that it should be thrown away as too hot to
wear, Jeekie replied that he had been cold for thirty years, and wished
to get warm again. 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