Page:Young Hunters in Porto Rico.djvu/242

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238
YOUNG HUNTERS IN PORTO RICO

mind—how they had wandered about for days without food and drink and light, to be found at last either dead or jibbering idiots. He felt that it would not take much to turn him crazy.

How long he remained on the rock he could never tell. At last, like one in a dream, he got up and ran—ran as hard as he could, as though a legion of demons were after him—along one rocky wall and another. His outstretched hands and good fortune saved him from many a nasty bump, and thus fully a mile was covered, when he fell down so exhausted he could not go another step.

"I'm buried alive!" he cried aloud; and a thousand echoes answered him: "Buried alive—alive—alive!" Then a strange vision came to him of untold horrors—snakes, demons, falling rocks and great torrents of water—and he fell flat in terror, and fainted.

When Dick came to his senses he leaped up, then sank back exhausted. Clearly he was out of his mind—for he thought that he was in a beautiful palace, and that a fairy of gold was dancing before him. Then the fairy seemed to motion him to come on, and he moved along slowly and painfully for fully a quarter of a mile. Presently the vision left him, and he sank down once again, only to get up when he was able, and run, he knew not where.