Forward we trudged, ever forward, across that enormous forest where the
myriad treetrunks presented the same dismal scene everywhere, a forest
untrodden save by wild, half-savage lumbermen. Throughout that dull
gray day we marched onward, faint with hunger, yet suffering but little
pain, for the first pangs were now past, and were succeeded by slight
light-headedness. My only fear was that we should be compelled to spend
another night without shelter, and what its effect might be upon the
delicately-reared girl whose hand I held tenderly in mine. Surely my
position was a strange one. Her terrible affliction seemed to cause her
to be entirely dependent upon me.
Suddenly, just as the yellow sunlight overhead had begun to fade, the
flat-faced Finn, whose name he had told me was Felix Estlander, cried
joyfully--
"_Polushaite!_ Look, Excellency! Ah! The road at last!"
And as we glanced before us we saw that his quick, well-trained eyes had
detected away in the twilight, at some distance, a path traversing our
vista among the gray-green tree-trunks.
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