ing of the undertow.

Starving, weak from fever, oppressed by the thought of death, but
lashed on by stimulants and the tenacity of life, I headed with my
two comrades out of the world of the unknown, toward the world of
men--to _Life_.

CHAPTER VIII

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE FOREST

On the second day of the return trip, we had a remarkable
experience. Probably not more than two hundred yards from the _tambo_
where we had spent the night, we heard the noise, as we thought, of a
tapir, but nothing could surpass our astonishment when we saw a human
being. Who could it be that dared alone to disturb the solitude of
the virgin forest, and who went along in these dreary woods humming
a melody?

It was a young Indian who approached us cautiously when Jerome spoke
in a tongue I did not understand, and evidently told him that we were
friends on the way back to our homes by the river. He was an unusually
fine specimen of a savage, well built, beautifully proportioned, and
with a flawless skin like polished bronze. His clothing was limited
to a bark girdle, and a feather head-dress not unlike that worn by
some North American Indians.

He was armed with bow and arrows and a blow-gun; and he had a small
rubber pouch filled with a brownish substance, the remarkable wourahli
poison. He explained to Jerome that his tribe lived in their _maloca_,
or tribal house, about 24 hours' march from this place, and that he
had been chasing a tapir all day, but had lost its track, and was now
returning to his home. He pointed in a north-western direction with
his blow-gun, signifying thereby the general route he was going to
follow in order to reach his destination. We sat down on the ground
and looked at each other for quite a while, and thus I had my first
chance of studying a blow-gun and the poisoned arrows, outside a
museum, and in a place where it was part of a man's life. At the time
I did not know that I was to have a little later a more thorough
opportunity of examining this weapon. I asked the Indian, Jerome
acting as interpreter, to demonstrate the use of the gun, to which he
consented with a grin. We soon heard the chattering of monkeys in the
tree-tops, and deftly inserting one of the thin poisoned arrows in the
ten-foot tube he pointed the weapon at a swiftly moving body among the
branches, and filling his lungs with air, let go. With a slight noise,
hardly perceptible, the arrow flew out and pierced the left thigh of a
l