ranger coming down, helped us to drag her out of the water.

"We may save the raft also," said the latter. "You may require it to
continue your voyage; as I conclude you do not intend to locate
yourselves here, and compel me to seek another home in the wilderness."

I was struck by the morose tone in which the stranger spoke. He,
however, assisted us in dragging up the raft sufficiently high to
prevent its being knocked about by the waves, which ran even into the
comparatively smooth part of the channel in which we found ourselves.

"We heartily thank you for your assistance," said John. "We owe the
preservation of our lives to you; for, with the increasing storm, we
could scarcely have escaped destruction had we been driven further down
the river."

"You owe me no thanks, young sir. I would have done the same for a
party of benighted savages, as you call them," answered the stranger.
"Your dumb companions are equally welcome. I am not ill pleased to see
them. It speaks in your favour that they follow you willingly, instead
of being dragged about with ropes and chains, or confined in cages, as
civilised men treat the creatures they pretend to tame. I have,
however, but poor shelter to offer you from the deluge which will soon
be down on our heads. Follow me; there is no time to be lost."

"But we must not allow our goods to remain out," said John.

"I will assist you, then, to carry them," answered the stranger, lifting
up double the number of packages which we usually carried at a time.

We then all loaded ourselves. Ellen insisted on carrying a package, and
followed the stranger, who went before us with his torch. We could not
even then exchange words, as we had to proceed in single file along a
narrow pathway, fringed on either side with thick shrubs--apparently the
after-growth of a cleared spot, soon to spring up again into tall trees.
We soon found ourselves within the forest, where, so dense was the
gloom, that without the torch to guide us we could not have made our
way. Its ruddy flame glanced on the trunks of the tall trees, showing a
canopy of wide-spreading boughs overhead, and the intricate tracery of
the numberless sipos which hung in festoons, or dropped in long
threadlike lines from them. Passing for a few yards through a jungle,
the boughs spreading so closely above our heads that we often had to
stoop, we found ourselves in an open space, in which by the light of the
torch we saw a sm