and look for them he would.  Did any one know where they were?  If the tribe knew, they did not care to tell:  but Ayacanora, the moment she found out his wishes, vanished into the forest, and returned in two days, saying that she had found the fugitives; but she would not show him where they were, unless he promised not to kill them.  He, of course, had no mind for so rigorous a method:  he both needed the men, and he had no malice against them,—­for the one, Ebsworthy, was a plain, honest, happy-go-lucky sailor, and as good a hand as there was in the crew; and the other was that same ne’er-do-weel Will Parracombe, his old schoolfellow, who had been tempted by the gipsy-Jesuit at Appledore, and resisting that bait, had made a very fair seaman.

So forth Amyas went, with Ayacanora as a guide, some five miles upward along the forest slopes, till the girl whispered, “There they are;” and Amyas, pushing himself gently through a thicket of bamboo, beheld a scene which, in spite of his wrath, kept him silent, and perhaps softened, for a minute.

On the farther side of a little lawn, the stream leapt through a chasm beneath overarching vines, sprinkling eternal freshness upon all around, and then sank foaming into a clear rock-basin, a bath for Dian’s self.  On its farther side, the crag rose some twenty feet in height, bank upon bank of feathered ferns and cushioned moss, over the rich green beds of which drooped a thousand orchids, scarlet, white, and orange, and made the still pool gorgeous with the reflection of their gorgeousness.  At its more quiet outfall, it was half-hidden in huge fantastic leaves and tall flowering stems; but near the waterfall the grassy bank sloped down toward the stream, and there, on palm-leaves strewed upon the turf, beneath the shadow of the crags, lay the two men whom Amyas sought, and whom, now he had found them, he had hardly heart to wake from their delicious dream.

For what a nest it was which they had found! the air was heavy with the scent of flowers, and quivering with the murmur of the stream, the humming of the colibris and insects, the cheerful song of birds, the gentle cooing of a hundred doves; while now and then, from far away, the musical wail of the sloth, or the deep toll of the bell-bird, came softly to the ear.  What was not there which eye or ear could need?  And what which palate could need either?  For on the rock above, some strange tree, leaning forward, dropped every now and then a luscious apple upon the grass below, and huge wild plantains bent beneath their load of fruit.

There, on the stream bank, lay the two renegades from civilized life.  They had cast away their clothes, and painted themselves, like the Indians, with arnotto and indigo.  One lay lazily picking up the fruit which fell close to his side; the other sat, his back against a cushion of soft moss, his hands folded languidly upon his lap, giving himself up to the soft influence of the narcotic coca-juice, with half-shut dreamy eyes fixed on the everlasting sparkle of the waterfall—­