Along the bed of the old watercourse
that once ran through the gorge they made their way, and as the
first faint lightening of the eastern horizon presaged the coming
dawn, they paused for a moment upon the edge of a declivity, which
appeared to the girl in the strange light of the waning night as a
vast, bottomless pit; but, as their captors resumed their way and
the light of the new day became stronger, she saw that they were
moving downward toward a dense forest.
Once beneath the over-arching trees all was again Cimmerian darkness,
nor was the gloom relieved until the sun finally arose beyond the
eastern cliffs, when she saw that they were following what appeared
to be a broad and well-beaten game trail through a forest of great
trees. The ground was unusually dry for an African forest and
the underbrush, while heavily foliaged, was not nearly so rank
and impenetrable as that which she had been accustomed to find
in similar woods. It was as though the trees and the bushes grew
in a waterless country, nor was there the musty odor of decaying
vegetation or the myriads of tiny insects such as are bred in damp
places.
As they proceeded and the sun rose higher, the voices of the
arboreal jungle life rose in discordant notes and loud chattering
about them. Innumerable monkeys scolded and screamed in the branches
overhead, while harsh-voiced birds of brilliant plumage darted
hither and thither.
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