A person in the city—even in the most desperate straits—never feels alone; human lives swarm around him; their close proximity supports him. But in the jungle it’s different. There everything conspires against him: the still and heavy air, the hostile silence, the deadly emanations from the plants that let death seep through in their morbidly seductive, voluptuous aroma, the beasts crouching behind tree-trunks that seem indifferent to our passage, the snakes that make a hell of that earthly paradise; in the jungle everything schemes against man.

Nevertheless, our traveler, despite the dark terror inherent in a stormy night in the forest, with no protection but his own courage, did not seem to be afraid. His cautious pace showed concern, yes, foresight as well, but not fear. To a knowing eye something about him revealed a person accustomed to the jungle. This something was his way of walking. He lifted his feet higher, a lot higher than apparently necessary, like someone walking on stilts, and this with a natural pliancy that identified from afar the son—either native or adoptive—of the forest.

Bristling with trunks and branches, the jungle floor, in fact, requires raising the legs so as not to trip, and this maneuver, extremely tiring at first, ends up becoming unconscious and therefore quite easy. On that account one can spot without fail the more or less jungle-wise character of the walker.

So our man was a person accustomed to the woods. And the bolts of lightning which, with their flashing glare, have allowed us to follow his feline progress, will permit us to learn something more.

Thus, in the livid brilliance of a ray of lightning followed by a frightful thunderclap, one could see that the traveler was wearing a pith helmet, a torn blouse and torn blue trousers, and heavy boots. The helmet revealed at once that its wearer was not a laborer; but on the other hand his visible nonchalance with respect to the forest, rare in a boss, seemed to affirm that he was.

What was he, then? An owner of a logging-camp? And what could he be doing on that night, in the very depths of the forest, walking along like someone watching for something, and all this without a shotgun? That’s what we’ll shortly know.

Like backlashes from the very fire that had lasted since nightfall, the lightning bolts had diminished. But now the rain was coming down in torrents, and the whole jungle, beaten without respite by the monstrous drops, gave off a muffled rumble.

“Damn!” the traveler muttered as he stopped. “Only paca rats are fit to go out in this weather.”

He said this in Spanish, but with a distinct Italian accent, and raised his head with that unconscious curiosity one has to look at the sky when it’s raining furiously. At that instant a resplendent lightning bolt split the air in front of him. The traveler closed his eyes, dazzled. For a moment he kept them that way, to dispel his temporary blindness. When he opened them he already had normal vision, and he plunged it into the darkness before him.

“And that dimwit isn’t here yet!” he muttered a second time.

What strange appointment could that be? The traveler remained motionless, getting even wetter—if that were possible, because the water was running from his helmet in streams, as though from an umbrella.

Despite his stillness, however, he couldn’t hear a soft rustling that arose behind him. At that moment a thunderclap erupted, and when its noise died down the rustling stopped as well.

The slightly shaken branches were left in total silence. Nevertheless, an uncanny feeling led our traveler to think that something had just taken place. Was it a chance solicitude? The intuition of danger common in frontier people, accustomed to a constant life-on-the-alert? Whatever the case, we’ve seen that the man we’re concerned with didn’t seem to be at all affected by the gloomy spectacle of the jungle on a night like that. But this time was different. He turned his head quickly, thrust his falcon’s glance into the deep canebrake he sensed at his back, and held still a while, lending that attentive ear which subdues and contracts all the other sensations of the body, and which the bush-hunter puts to use with all his heart and soul, for hanging from it, as from a thread, is his life.

He heard nothing, and turned around, again investigating the darkness; and hurling an emphatic curse, went on ahead. Then at the edge of the canebrake two doleful green dots glared out. They advanced with deathly slowness up to the trail and followed the traveler’s progress. After a while the green dots began to move in his direction.

Meanwhile our strange traveler was continuing his cautious advance, when suddenly a wail of agony—long, throbbing, and afflictive—drowned out the noise of the storm. It came from deep in the distant reaches of the jungle. When he heard it the traveler stopped abruptly; but rather than one of terror, a beaming expression of joy broke out on his face.

“At last!” he shouted, almost running. A moment later he stopped again, seized with intense anxiety.

“It seemed to be close to the ground,” he murmured, in the grip of anguish.

A moment went by. Finally making up his mind, he spread his mouth open with the thumb and index finger of his left hand and let out a long cry into the sinister night, the same desolate wail that had come to him. A moment later, but much nearer, the melancholy signal sounded again, and the traveler uttered a deep sigh of relief.

“I’ll have to tell him not to imitate so well,” he murmured smiling and moving on.

The cry of agony that both had just sent forth was a perfect imitation of the one you can hear from the anteater on frigid winter nights, and it sounds like a-hu! a-hu! a-hu! ahu! ahu! ahhhúu!

An instant later a shadow stood in front of the man we’ve met. The newcomer, from what could be glimpsed during the flashes of lightning, was wearing a large straw hat with a red band. Above the waist a striped workshirt, which by now couldn’t have many buttons left, judging from the wide opening it left at his chest. Around his waist, on top of his drawers and down to his knees was a burlap rag held up by a narrow cord.

“How come you took so long?” our traveler said to him hurriedly.