Only once, since my advent among the Links, had a fog remained all day to obscure the hills and forest, but this one threatened to perform a similar feat. From time to time it lifted for a moment from a local area, only to descend again more quickly than before. I began to believe that perhaps it might be possible for a party of us to deploy on a foraging tour and visit the grove of fruit-bearing trees. Unfortunately the Blacks had made their camp in the most accessible “orchard,” which gave them a great advantage. However, I knew of several cocoanut palms, a little removed from the enemy’s position, which I thought I could find, even in the dark. I decided to make an attempt to reach this grove. It was well along in the afternoon by this, and the fog still hung heavily on the country. As before, I had considerable trouble in getting a force of fellows to back me in the enterprise. But the hungriest became the bravest and therefore with ten stout fellows, all armed, I left the wall behind and went cautiously down the hill. Very soon I found that everything appeared so altered in the mist that piloting my party was not at all an easy matter. I disliked exceedingly the prospect of finding myself in the enemy’s lines, but having started, I was too proud, or too stubborn, to do such a sensible thing as retreat and own myself baffled. We therefore proceeded uncertainly along, near the edge of the trees, getting deeper and deeper, it seemed, into the maze of fog and unfamiliar objects. The mist down here was much more dense than that which floated about the camp above. As we prowled stealthily ahead, looking aloft at the shadowy trees, the curtain of vapour was rended about us, abruptly, leaving us bare—as it were—and completely revealed. On the second a cry of alarm broke from a Black, not fifteen yards away, and a chorus of yells made answer, as a score of the demons rushed out from the cover of trees, to give us battle. My nimble fellows vanished like shadows, bounding swiftly up the slope and into the kindly bank of fog, before the Blacks could so much as count their heels. I also started to dash away toward the camp, but tripped over a rolling stone and fell down heavily, my ankle sprained and pain shooting all through my leg and body. Scrambling on hands and knees in desperate haste, I made toward the fog, conscious that three or four of the Blacks were dashing toward me. I breathed a great sigh of relief and thankfulness to see the mist close in upon the place.