Yet he might have been excused had he hesitated to enter such a maze as that which reared itself within less than a hundred yards of the spot which the party had fixed upon for their temporary camp, for there was no semblance of a path through it, and the mode of progress consisted simply in entering at the spot where the tangle was thinnest and, still following the line of least resistance, in that way make one's devious way forward. Progressing in such a fashion, it would have been quite possible, nay more, almost inevitable, that one unaccustomed to such a mode of travel should become hopelessly lost within the first five minutes; but not so Stukely or Dick; they had learned to preserve their bearings by noting the moss growing on the trunks of the trees, the direction in which their principal branches pointed, and a hundred other apparently trivial signs. But it was a weird place in which to be alone, for, apart from the green twilight produced by the filtration of the light through the dense canopy of foliage that shut out all view of the sky overhead, the under-brake was so thick that it was seldom possible to see more than a yard or two ahead, and it was impossible to say what strange or thrilling sight might at any moment meet the gaze. Then there was the uncanny silence of the place, the kind of silence that caused an involuntary movement on tiptoe and the holding of the breath for fear of breaking it, yet which was broken at recent intervals by stealthy, unaccountable rustlings, or sudden, violent commotions beginning close at hand and gradually dying away in the distance. These strange, sudden, unaccountable sounds, caused in all probability by a boa-constrictor, a buck, or some other creature startled into quick movement by the scent of a human being, wafted to their nostrils by an errant draught of air, were even more startling to the nerves than the distant roar of the jaguar, or the call of the bell bird which irresistibly suggested the incongruous idea that at no great distance in those gloomy forest depths would be found a church!