CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

THE WOODLAND FOES.

They took the same path without much difficulty, Shaddy tracing it
carefully step by step; and for a time Rob eagerly joined in the
tracing, every now and then pointing out a place where they had broken a
twig or displaced a bough; but after a time the gloom of the forest
began to oppress him, and a strange sensation of shrinking from
penetrating farther forced him to make a call upon himself and think of
the words uttered before they recommenced their search.

For there was always the feeling upon him that at any moment danger
might be lurking thus in their way, and that the next moment they might
be face to face with death.

"But that's all selfishness," he forced himself to think. "We have to
find Mr Brazier."

This fresh loss to a certain extent obliterated the other trouble, and
there were times when poor Giovanni was completely forgotten, though at
others Rob found himself muttering,--

"Poor Joe! and now poor Mr Brazier! Whose turn will it be next? And
those at home will never know of our fate."

But it generally happened that at these most depressing times something
happened to make a fresh call upon his energies. Now it would be a
fault in the tracking, their way seeming to be quite obliterated. Now
Shaddy would point out marks certainly not made by them; for flowers of
the dull colourless kind, which flourished so sickly here in these
shades, had been broken-off, as if they had been examined, and then been
thrown aside: convincing proofs that Brazier had been botanising there,
collecting, and casting away objects unworthy of his care.

At one spot, unnoticed on their return, quite a bunch of curious growths
lay at the foot of a huge buttressed tree, where there were indications
of some one having lain down for a time as if to rest. Farther on, at
the side of a tree, also unnoticed before, a great liana had been torn
away from a tree trunk, so that it looked as if it had been done by one
who climbed; and Shaddy said, with a satisfied smile,--

"He's been along here, Mr Rob, sure enough. Keep a good heart, sir;
we're getting cleverer at tracking."

On they went in silence, forcing their way between the trees, with the
forest appearing darker than ever, save here and there, where, so sure
as a little light penetrated, with it came sound. Now it was the hum of
insect life in the sunshine far above their heads; now it was the
shrieking or twitterin