"I couldn't bear the thought of being left behind, and though I knew that I should be reduced to a pancake, and bitten into one mass of blisters, I determined to follow you," he answered, "but it has been trying work, I can assure you. I have lost three stone already, so Dick Spurling, my coxswain, who is a good judge of weight, declares, and I have made him hoist me up on his back every morning to try. And then those abominably greedy mosquitoes! I should have thought after feasting on the hides of two hundred fellows or more, they might have had the conscience to let me alone, the gluttons! I had to tell the men off into watches to wave branches over me at night, or there wouldn't have been an ounce of blood left in the morning, even if they hadn't carried me off bodily, and really, considering the size of their wings and the strength of their proboscises, I thought that more than probable. Now after all I have gone through, I only hope that the enemy will hold out and give us something to do." As Captain Hemming was unwilling to displace Murray, he directed the sorely-tried commander to take charge of the heavier boats, while he and the lieutenant proceeded on ahead with the lighter ones, to endeavour, before commencing hostilities, to try and settle matters by pacific measures. The order was now given to move ahead. "Faith, it's easy enough to say that same," exclaimed Adair, "but it's much harder to do it. However, give way, my lads; we shall see the noses of the Dons before long, if they stop to show them, and if not, we shall chance to get sight of their coat-tails." A hearty laugh from his boat's crew, as they bent lustily to their oars, followed this sally. As the crews of the heavier boats laboured with all their strength they made good way, and for some time kept the two light gigs in sight. They now entered a reach of a mile and a half in length, at the head of which, according to the consul's description, the fort would be found. The captain and Murray pulled on for some distance, though the mist which still hung over the river hid them from sight of the fort. Not a breath of air stirred the leaves of the forest; the monkeys, as before, chattered among the branches, and bright-coloured macaws flew screaming overhead. At length, far in the distance, on the summit of a bold point projecting into the river, the stockade they might have to attack came into sight. The rays of the rising sun shining on the fort brought it into bold relief against the dark woods, and above the deep shadows cast across the stream.