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needles sliding in my veins the moment, and the fine fire before me. All this—all—is because of the dank breathing of the jungle. You cannot sleep in it nor lie in it, nor live in it at all but it breathes on you and withers you.

“And the brown Indians—why, look!” He rolled back his sleeve, and Robert in disgust motioned him to cover the sick white horror which festered on his arm.

“It was only a little scratch of an arrow—you could hardly see it; but it'll be killing me before years, I guess. There's other things in me, Robert. Even the humans are poisonous, and a song the sailors sing about that.”

Now young Henry started up excitedly.

“But the Indians,” he cried; “those Indians and their arrows. Tell me about them! Do they fight much? How do they look?”

“Fight?” said Dafydd. ‘Yes, they fight always; fighting the men of Spain, they're at killing amongst themselves. Lithe as snakes they are, and quick and quiet and brown as ferrets; the very devil for getting out of sight before a man might get a shot at them.

“But they're a brave, strong people with the fear in them for only two things—dogs and slavery.” Dafydd was immersed in his tale. “Why, boy, can you think what they would be doing to a man that might get himself taken in a skirmish? They stick him full of long jungle thorns from his head to his toes, and on the thick end of every thorn a ball