For fifteen minutes I fought my way through the vines and plants. The flashes were more intense, and nearer than before, but of rocks or of anything familiar I saw not so much as a shadow. “I’m lost!” I cried at last, “I’m lost!” The confession burst from my lips as if to mock me. The stupendous meaning of the truth burst in upon me ruthlessly. I was lost—alone in this terrible jungle and night coming on apace! Every horror of my night in the tree, above that ghastly banquet of the tiger, came vividly back. Every thought of the snakes and the prowling beasts, in search of blood and meat, seemed to burn deeper into my brain with the blinding shimmer of lightning. I fled in one direction, then in another—then anywhere, at random. It was foolish and weak to race hither and yon as I did in my semi-madness, but the dark jungle created an unspeakable dread in my brain; its terrors were magnified by my contemplation of one danger after another. I foresaw nothing but a dreadful death, which might come soon or late. To find the camp of my Links I felt would be quite impossible, for I knew absolutely nothing, by this, of one direction from another. Wildly and thoughtlessly I kept on going. A crash of thunder now split open the clouds and let down a deluge of rain. It made no difference to me, any more than did the darkness. But while I was pushing senselessly ahead, I slipped on a patch of wetted clay and slid to an unseen edge, over which I shot, going down below like a sack of bolts. I struck on my feet, landing on something half soft. Instantly a furious growl of pain and rage made me leap away forward. A brilliant dance of lightning made the spot as bright as day—and I beheld two hideous ourang-outangs, which had just been in the act of crawling into a cave, and on the legs of one of which I had landed. They came quickly toward me, in a frenzy of anger. I dashed away, along a well-beaten path that was made through the growth, the two brutes hotly pursuing. The darkness that followed the glare of light was of only a second’s duration, so continuous had the electric display in the heavens become. The beasts were gaining upon me. Across a leaf-hidden log I pitched headlong. The ourangs were nearly upon me when I sprang again to my feet and raced away. Still they gained; and the noises they made chilled the blood in my veins, so diabolical was the sound. My breath grew short, my bow, which I had continued to hold in my hand, got caught for a second, yet I dared not let it drop, though it caused me the greatest of trouble.