“I don’t know the habits of Southern snakes; but if they are as well-bred as ours, they retire from the ken of wicked men at sundown, so we needn’t fear them, as the sun is too far down for the snake of tradition to see or molest us.”

They stepped out of the boat at a green, sedgy point, extending from a labyrinth of flowering vines and creepers.  Once inside the delicious odorous screen, they found themselves in an archipelago of green islets, connected by monster roots or moss-covered trunks that seemed laid by elfin hands for the penetration of this leafy jungle.

“Yes; I was going to say,” Jack continued, “this swift transposition from the cultivation of civilization to the handiwork of Nature is whimsically illustrative of the people.  Did you ever see or hear or read of such open-handed, honest-hearted hospitality as theirs; such refinement of manners; such sincerity in speech and act?  Contrast this with their fairly pagan creed as to the slaves; their intolerance of the Northern people; their clannish reverence for family.”

“But isn’t the inequality of the Southern character due to their strange lack of education?  Few of them are cultivated as we understand education.  Do you notice that among the people we met at Williamsburg—­officers as well as civilians—­none of them were equal to even a very limited range of subjects?  All who are educated have been in the North.  Ah—­good Heavens!”

Kate’s exclamation was due to a sudden sinking in the mossy causeway until she was almost buried in the tall ferns.  Jack helped her out, shivered a moment, doubtingly, as he exclaimed: 

“The sun is nearly down now, though the air is transparent, or would be if we were in the free play of daylight.  I think it would be better to go back.”  But they made no haste.  Such trophies of ferns and lace-like mosses were not to be plucked in every walk, and they dawdled on and on skirmishing, with delighted hardihood, against the pitfalls of bog that covered morass and pitch-black mud.  When the impulse finally came to hasten back, they were somewhat chagrined to discover that they had lost their own trail.  The point where they had quit the stream could not be found.  Clambering plants, burdened with blossoms, fragrant as honeysuckle, grew all along the bank, and the bush that had attracted them was no longer a landmark.

“Well,” Jack said, confidently, “the sun disappeared over there; that is southwest.  The house is in that direction—­northeast.  Now, if you will keep that big sycamore in your eye and follow me, we shall be nearing the house, as I calculate.”

They pushed on in that direction, but had only gone a few yards when the ground became a perfect quagmire of black loam, that looked like coal ground to powder, and was thin as mush.

“This is a brilliant stroke on my part, I must say,” Jack cried, facing Kate ruefully.  “We must go back and examine the ground, as Indians do, and find our entrance trail in that way.  I will watch the ground and you keep an eye on the shrubs.  Wherever you see havoc among them you may be sure my manly foot has fallen there.”