It was now rapidly growing dark, and the feeling of depression and alarm rapidly increased. So thoroughly frightened did she become at last that she would gladly have called for help, but her common-sense warned her that such a proceeding would only bring down her enemies upon her if they were in hearing; and at last, with her horror of her loneliness increasing fast, and a feeling of dread that some savage beast of prey had seized upon the Malay girl gradually overmastering her, she sank upon the earth, weeping bitterly, helpless as a child, and asking herself if she dared face all those she knew again, and whether she had not better die. How that night passed Helen never knew. Sometimes she sank into a weary kind of stupor, full of troublous dreams, from which she started awake with a sense of horror, and a full belief that some terrible creature was about to spring upon her. At times too, as if to carry out this illusion, she listened with beating heart to the distant howl of some wandering beast, or to one or other of the mysterious noises heard during the night in the primeval wilds. The darkness seemed as if it would never end, and the rushing river, as it sped on like a stream of ink full of stars' reflections, hissed and writhed, and at times lapped the bank upon which she sat as if it were a huge serpent seeking to make her its prey. This idea suggested the loathsome monsters that she knew would haunt the hot, steamy jungle close to the river side; and with starting eyes, when some low rustle was heard amongst the leaves, she tried to pierce the darkness, believing over and over again that she saw some lithe, undulating reptile gradually approaching her; and at such times it required all her strength of mind to determine that it was but a mere fancy, and as unreal as the images of fierce creatures that she more than once believed that she saw coming out of the jungle. Then her busy brain reminded her of other and more real perils of her position--the more dangerous from their insidious nature and approach. Depressed in spirit as she was, she could not help recalling the accounts she had heard of the deadly fevers, and the certainty of their attacking anyone who passed the night upon the bare earth. Still, it would only mean death at the worst, she thought, in a weary, despondent way; and her misery was so great now that she felt ready to give up her very life sooner than fall again into Murad's hands. Then her thoughts flew to Harley, with whom she seemed to associate any hope that she might have of the future; and for a time she would brighten up, and contrast her present position with that of some few hours back. She was a prisoner then, and in terrible peril; now she was free, and the chances were, she hopefully told herself, that she might fall in with some party sent in search of her, for she would not believe Murad's version of her disappearance to be true.