Page:Through South Westland.djvu/115

been up looking for us. Thankfully we followed our guide to the hut—not a quarter of a mile away—and found his mate busy preparing a bush lantern. This serviceable and primitive invention is just a bottle with the bottom knocked out, and a candle stuck in the neck, carried upside-down. And glad we were of it when we plunged once more into the bush. The rain had come on again; no ray of light except our candle illumined the blackness of darkness under the trees. Streams poured down noisily across the path, and from below us came the sullen roar of the Waiho in flood. Drip, drip, overhead, slop, slop, underfoot: we made our way in a darkness that might be felt. As I followed Transome clad in oilskin and sou’-wester, he looked like some hermit of old, bearing his torch aloft, guiding some lost pilgrim to his cell. The light thrown upwards on the wet trees and fern fronds, showing dark forms and the gleam of water, had a weird, theatrical effect, but it left the path itself in utter darkness, and one knew not where to place one’s feet. How were we going to get across that narrow, swaying suspension-bridge like this? To mend matters, when we came to where we thought it was, we could not find it. But at this tragical moment a flickering light, like a will-o’-the-wisp, came through the trees; a cheery voice hailed us, and someone holding up his lantern showed us the supports of the suspension-bridge close over our heads. This friend-in-need guided us safely over