Soon after this another Maroon sat up and looked round, and then another, and another; so that I was very glad I had not lost the opportunity of which I had taken advantage. In another quarter of an hour, the whole force was on the move. I looked anxiously to ascertain whether they had discovered that the captain's bands had been loosened; but without examining him, they lifted up the litter, and bore him on as before. In consequence of this I walked on much more cheerily than I had previously done, though I still got an occasional prick to hasten my steps. As we advanced, we got into still more hilly and wild country. All signs of cultivation had ceased, and vegetation revelled in the most extravagant profusion. Our chief difficulty was to avoid the prickly pears, and the cacti, and the noose-forming creepers, which extended across our path. We were in the advance party; the rest of the white men followed at a distance from us, so that we had no prospect of communicating with them. The encouragement the captain had given me helped to raise my spirits, and I endeavoured further to keep them up by whistling and singing occasionally, but it was with a heavy heart that I did so. My great consolation was all the time that my friend Peter Poplar was not in the same predicament. He would have felt it more than any of us. He had long been prepared for any misfortune which could happen to him at sea, but he had not made up his mind to undergo hardships on shore as well. At last I began to grow very weary of walking so far over such rough and uneven ground, and I was glad to find that the blacks were approaching their encampment or village. It consisted of a number of rude huts, built on the summit of a high rock, with steep precipices on every side. A narrow causeway led to it from another rock, which jutted out from the side of the hill. It was a very strong place, for it extended too far into the valley to be reached by musketry from the hill; and the hill itself was too rugged to allow cannon to be dragged up it. The rock appeared to have rude palisades and embankments, to serve as fortifications, over a large portion of its upper surface. As I examined it, I saw that our chance of escape from such a place, by any method I could imagine, was small indeed. I do not know what the captain thought about the matter, but he was not a man to be defeated by difficulties, or to abandon hope while a spark of life remained.