Now that the battle had been won, prudence required that he withdraw to his base of operations.  Alas; like many a mightier conqueror, and like one, the mightiest, he could not

                           curb the lust for war,
  Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest star.

Advancing from the bank of the creek he suddenly found himself confronted with a new and more formidable enemy:  in the path that he was following, sat, bolt upright, with ears erect and paws suspended before it, a rabbit!  With a startled cry the child turned and fled, he knew not in what direction, calling with inarticulate cries for his mother, weeping, stumbling, his tender skin cruelly torn by brambles, his little heart beating hard with terror—­breathless, blind with tears—­lost in the forest!  Then, for more than an hour, he wandered with erring feet through the tangled undergrowth, till at last, overcome by fatigue, he lay down in a narrow space between two rocks, within a few yards of the stream and still grasping his toy sword, no longer a weapon but a companion, sobbed himself to sleep.  The wood birds sang merrily above his head; the squirrels, whisking their bravery of tail, ran barking from tree to tree, unconscious of the pity of it, and somewhere far away was a strange, muffled thunder, as if the partridges were drumming in celebration of nature’s victory over the son of her immemorial enslavers.  And back at the little plantation, where white men and black were hastily searching the fields and hedges in alarm, a mother’s heart was breaking for her missing child.

Hours passed, and then the little sleeper rose to his feet.  The chill of the evening was in his limbs, the fear of the gloom in his heart.  But he had rested, and he no longer wept.  With some blind instinct which impelled to action he struggled through the undergrowth about him and came to a more open ground—­on his right the brook, to the left a gentle acclivity studded with infrequent trees; over all, the gathering gloom of twilight.  A thin, ghostly mist rose along the water.  It frightened and repelled him; instead of recrossing, in the direction whence he had come, he turned his back upon it, and went forward toward the dark inclosing wood.  Suddenly he saw before him a strange moving object which he took to be some large animal—­a dog, a pig—­he could not name it; perhaps it was a bear.  He had seen pictures of bears, but knew of nothing to their discredit and had vaguely wished to meet one.  But something in form or movement of this object—­something in the awkwardness of its approach—­told him that it was not a bear, and curiosity was stayed by fear.  He stood still and as it came slowly on gained courage every moment, for he saw that at least it had not the long, menacing ears of the rabbit.  Possibly his impressionable mind was half conscious of something familiar in its shambling, awkward gait.  Before it had approached near enough to resolve his doubts he saw that it was followed by another and another.  To right and to left were many more; the whole open space about him was alive with them—­all moving toward the brook.