o-day, my dependence upon her grew greater.
The brave man is said to die once and the coward often, but the line
between the courage and cowardice is not absolute. There were periods
when I felt that I could play the game and die if I must, with the
detached philosophy of a Socrates. At other times I wallowed in the pit
of foreboding and died several times a day. In these moods I wished for
the moment of crisis which should put my resolution to the touch, and
end the matter.

The savages did not approach my cave, but sometimes when evening fell
and the jungle spread itself in a fringed blanket against the moonlight,
I could make out skulking patches of shadow at its edge. In my rambles
too I had a sense of being endlessly watched by unseen eyes, and once
bending over a sunlit pool to drink, I was startled by the haggard face
which looked up from it with streaks of white in its long, tangled hair.
Each day I brought fresh orchids from the jungle's edge and heaped them
before my intangible lady.

"They are more beautiful, Frances," I told her, "than any I could buy
you along the Champs Elysees or Fifth Avenue--and all they cost is a
ship and crew and cargo."

One morning I discovered that where the growth of cane and moss and
vines had formerly been thick and unbroken there were now several
clearly defined alleyways, made by the coming and going of the blacks,
bent on observing me. A few inquisitive steps into one of these trails
revealed, at a little distance, a pool of water. Its basin was of mossy
rock, and its edges were choked with ferns. A slender waterfall fed it,
and through the cloistered half-light of the forest interior fell a few
fervid dashes of sunlight like gold leaf on the somber tones of
greenery. The air hung wet and steamy like the atmosphere of a hot
house. But the marvel of it was the orchids. They climbed and trailed
and illumined the place with a dozen varieties of weird and subtle
beauty. One could understand why men take their lives into their hands
and penetrate fever-infested jungles in search of newer types. Their
delicacy was unearthly and splendid. They were not, it seemed, flowers
growing on dirt-fed stems, but blossoms of the gods. Each one was like
the blooming of some human soul freed from the grossness of the flesh.
Here was a bloom as ethereally pure and pale as the reincarnation of
some flawless virgin spirit; there were flaming petals of such
magnificent color as might have sprung