They landed about three miles from the town, and at once formed for action. Some Indian scouts led the party, then came Margaret with a dozen axemen, all carrying powder-kegs, for the destruction of the gate. The _Broken Heart_ men formed the vanguard. Pain’s men followed, in rough order. The boats, with a boat-guard of thirty or forty men, some of whom were leeches, pulled out into the gulf, to prepare lint and salves for the hurt. The landing party looked to their firearms. There was a little confusion and splashing, owing to the narrowness of the beach, which forced some of them to stand in the sea. In a few minutes they were all ready. They set forward, as silently as they could, keeping a fast walk, lest Tucket’s men, now hidden among rocks a mile to the north of the town, should grow weary of waiting. It was still dark night about them; but they knew from the faintness of the wind that it was near dawn. The macaws were waking in the forest. Strange cries, strange primeval noises, sounded in the forest. There were stealthy patterings, quick scuttering droppings, as some animal brushed among the scrub, knocking off the dew. The Indian who walked by Margaret knew what these noises meant. He paused at each sound, as though to make sure that they were really what they seemed. A chicaly-chicaly made her sweet, sharp cry, from somewhere ahead. It touched Margaret to the heart; it was so like the tolling of a cuckoo. The Indian bent his head back and replied, so exactly that the bird answered. Margaret had never before heard this done; though he had read of it. He wondered, as he marched, if all knowledge ranked alike, if all power, all imagination, ranked alike, and whether this Indian, who could apprehend the natures of all these creatures in the wood, were not really a finer product than himself. He could not imitate a chicaly-chicaly, he could not raise the devil, he could not see a three-days’-old track on stones. He wished that in the march to a full life one had not to forget so much. One should have all the powers, all the savage powers even, one should be a divine spirit of apprehension, one should inform the whole world, feeling the pismire’s want as keenly as the saint’s ecstasy. One should be able to apprehend the wild things, the things of the wood, as well as the spirit of a poet in his divine moment. True life is to be alive in every fibre to the divine in all things. He wondered whether the Indians communed with the beasts, getting from them something which the white men ignored; coming, through them, to secrets unknown to white men, secrets of nature, of the universal spirit, of the spirit which binds the herds of peccary, and slinks in the wild cat, and sings in the bell-voiced golden-comb. He thought little of the business in hand. His mind was blank about it. All that he could think of the coming struggle was that he must bring back Stukeley, find him and bring him back, or never go back himself.