In about an hour they came to it:  it was then quite dark, the sky powdered with numberless stars; but when they got among the trees the blue, dusky sky and brilliant stars disappeared from sight, as if a black cloud had come over them, so dark was it in the forest.  For the trees were very tall and mingled their branches overhead; but they had got into a narrow path known to them, and moving slowly in single file, they kept on for about two hours longer, then stopped and dismounted under the great trees, and lying down all close together, went to sleep.  Martin, lying among them, crept under the edge of one of the large skin robes and, feeling warm, he soon fell fast asleep and did not wake till daylight.

[Illustration:  ]

CHAPTER VII

ALONE IN THE GREAT FOREST

Imagine to yourself one accustomed to live in the great treeless plain, accustomed to open his eyes each morning to the wide blue sky and the brilliant sunlight, now for the first time opening them in that vast gloomy forest, where neither wind nor sunlight came, and no sound was heard, and twilight lasted all day long!  All round him were trees with straight, tall grey trunks, and behind and beyond them yet other trees—­trees everywhere that stood motionless like pillars of stone supporting the dim green roof of foliage far above.  It was like a vast gloomy prison in which he had been shut, and he longed to make his escape to where he could see the rising sun and feel the fanning wind on his cheeks.  He looked round at the others:  they were all stretched on the ground still in a deep sleep, and it frightened him a little to look at their great, broad, dark faces framed in masses of black hair.  He felt that he hated them, for they had treated him badly:  the children had taken his clothes, compelling him to go naked, and had beaten and bruised him, and he had not been pitied and helped by their elders.  By and by, very quietly and cautiously he crept away from among them, and made his escape into the gloomy wood.  On one side the forest shadows looked less dark than the other, and on that side he went, for it was the side on which the sun rose, and the direction he had been travelling when he first met with the savages.  On and on he went, over the thick bed of dark decaying leaves, which made no rustling sound, looking like a little white ghost of a boy in that great gloomy wood.  But he came to no open place, nor did he find anything to eat when hunger pressed him; for there were no sweet roots and berries there, nor any plant that he had ever seen before.  It was all strange and gloomy, and very silent.  Not a leaf trembled; for if one had trembled near him he would have heard it whisper in that profound stillness that made him hold his breath to listen.  But sometimes at long intervals the silence would be broken by a sound that made him start and stand still and wonder what had caused it.  For the rare sounds in the forest were unlike any sounds he had heard before.  Three or four times during the day a burst of loud, hollow, confused laughter sounded high up among the trees; but he saw nothing, although most likely the creature that had laughed saw him plainly enough from its hiding-place in the deep shadows as it ran up the trunks of the trees.