"My Shirt Was Now Absolutely Torn Off My Back, And I Was Left Perfectly
Naked.
When my plunderers began to quarrel for the spoil, the idea of
escape came like lightning across my mind,
And without a moment's
hesitation or reflection, I crept under the belly of the horse nearest
me, and started as fast as my legs could carry me for the thickest part
of the wood. Two of the Fellatahs followed, and I ran on to the eastward,
knowing that our stragglers would be in that direction, but still almost
as much afraid of friends as foes. My pursuers gained on me, for the
prickly underwood not only obstructed my passage, but tore my flesh
miserably; and the delight with which I saw a mountain stream gliding
along at the bottom of a deep ravine cannot be imagined. My strength had
almost left me, and I seized the young branches issuing from the stump of
a large tree which overhung the ravine, for the purpose of letting myself
down into the water, as the sides were precipitous; when under my hand,
as the branch yielded to the weight of my body, a large _liffa_, the
worst kind of serpent this country produces, rose from its coil as if in
the very act of striking. I was horror-struck, and deprived for a moment
of all recollection - the branch slipped from my hand, and I tumbled
headlong into the water beneath; this shock, however, revived me, and
with three strokes of my arms I reached the opposite bank, which with
difficulty I crawled up, and then, for the first time, felt myself safe
from my pursuers.
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