sed astonishment. At
this moment I was just on the point of giving free and loud vent to the
laughter which I had been holding in when, just behind me, as if from
some person who had been watching the scene over my shoulder and was as
much amused as myself at its termination, sounded a clear trill of merry
laughter. I started up and looked hastily around, but no living creature
was there. The mass of loose foliage I stared into was agitated, as if
from a body having just pushed through it. In a moment the leaves and
fronds were motionless again; still, I could not be sure that a slight
gust of wind had not shaken them. But I was so convinced that I had
heard close to me a real human laugh, or sound of some living creature
that exactly simulated a laugh, that I carefully searched the ground
about me, expecting to find a being of some kind. But I found nothing,
and going back to my seat on the hanging branch, I remained seated for
a considerable time, at first only listening, then pondering on the
mystery of that sweet trill of laughter; and finally I began to wonder
whether I, like the spider that chased the shadow, had been deluded, and
had seemed to hear a sound that was not a sound.

On the following day I was in the wood again, and after a two or three
hours' ramble, during which I heard nothing, thinking it useless to
haunt the known spots any longer, I turned southwards and penetrated
into a denser part of the forest, where the undergrowth made progress
difficult. I was not afraid of losing myself; the sun above and my sense
of direction, which was always good, would enable me to return to the
starting-point.

In this direction I had been pushing resolutely on for over half an
hour, finding it no easy matter to make my way without constantly
deviating to this side or that from the course I wished to keep, when I
came to a much more open spot. The trees were smaller and scantier here,
owing to the rocky nature of the ground, which sloped rather rapidly
down; but it was moist and overgrown with mosses, ferns, creepers, and
low shrubs, all of the liveliest green. I could not see many yards ahead
owing to the bushes and tall fern fronds; but presently I began to hear
a low, continuous sound, which, when I had advanced twenty or thirty
yards further, I made out to be the gurgling of running water; and at
the same moment I made the discovery that my throat was parched and my
palms tingling with heat. I hurried on, promi