By the time Lop-Ear
and I had caught up with her, the Fire-Men appeared
among the trees. Hair-Face's wife, driven by them into
panic terror, dashed after us. But she ran blindly,
without caution, and broke through the crust. We
turned and watched, and saw them shoot her with arrows
as she sank down in the mud. The arrows began falling
about us. Hair-Face had now joined us, and the four of
us plunged on, we knew not whither, deeper and deeper
into the swamp.
CHAPTER XVIII
Of our wanderings in the great swamp I have no clear
knowledge. When I strive to remember, I have a riot of
unrelated impressions and a loss of time-value. I have
no idea of how long we were in that vast everglade, but
it must have been for weeks. My memories of what
occurred invariably take the form of nightmare. For
untold ages, oppressed by protean fear, I am aware of
wandering, endlessly wandering, through a dank and
soggy wilderness, where poisonous snakes struck at us,
and animals roared around us, and the mud quaked under
us and sucked at our heels.
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