With such-like rhapsodies, I relieved the fulness of my heart, as I followed the stream, splashing down in its very centre. Sometimes when a small waterfall interrupted its course, I had to scramble ashore and make a brief circuit, but I soon took to the water again. In about ten minutes after I had first entered the river, the bay of the bloodhound ceased to be heard; but I distinguished the sound of a clearly-blown horn or trumpet, and the report of one or two guns, as though one party were making signals to another. Still I pressed on, but more cautiously—watching the banks very narrowly, and at the places where the stream flowed silently, pausing to listen with all my ears. There was no alarm, and I began to grow very confident, when all at once it occurred to me, as I glanced at the point of the horizon to which the sun was now hastening, that I must be rapidly returning either to Carthagena, or to some point very near it, upon the coast, where, undoubtedly, this rivulet emptied itself into the sea. This consideration at once arrested my footsteps; and creeping among the roots of a tree, beneath an overhanging bank, I began to muse upon what was best to be done. I did not doubt but that my pursuers had fairly lost my traces, and that it would be a hard matter for them again to find the scent. Indeed I considered that I might very safely leave the water, and pursue my original westward route amongst the woods; but then I was unarmed, excepting my knife, and without even the means of lighting a fire how was I to live among the forests and the wildernesses which stretched backward from the coast? As I mused, a thought struck me. When first captured by the Spaniards, I had several double doubloons, and a few pieces of eight about me. This money I had been careful to preserve, and possessed it still, save one of the doubloons, which I had given to my jailer, as he bade me adieu. Why, then, thought I, should I not return to Carthagena as soon as the night falls, and endeavour to purchase fairly what I want? I speak Spanish sufficiently well. I am dressed like a Spanish sailor. Why should I not, by a circuitous path, reach the seaward part of the city, and making believe that I have landed from a vessel in the bay, purchase what arms and ammunition I require, not forgetting some food, and so leaving the town again in the darkness, pursue my way westward? The more I thought of this scheme, the more feasible did it appear. To be sure, there was a risk of being taken, and perhaps hung; but if I plunged unarmed into the woods, I had at least the certainty of dying a lingering death by starvation, or of being murdered by the savages. Therefore, without much ado, I decided upon braving the immediate danger, and purchasing what I wanted in the town, from which I had so recently fled. With this design, I began again to wade slowly down the river, thinking to myself that if any one noticed the wet state of my garments, I