n hour's steady tramping brought me nowhere in particular, and
stopping for a minute to consider, I picked a few wild fruit, such as
my wood-cutter friend had eaten, from an overhanging bush, and in so
doing slipped, the soil having now become damp, and in falling broke a
branch off. The incident was only important from what follows. Picking
myself up, perhaps a little shaken by the jolt, I set off again upon
what seemed the plain road, and being by this time displeased by my
surroundings, determined to make a push for "civilization" before the
rapidly gathering darkness settled down.

Hands in pockets and collar up, I marched forward at a good round pace
for an hour, constantly straining eyes for a sight of the hill and ears
for some indications of living beings in the deathly hush of the
shrouded woods, and at the end of that time, feeling sure habitations
must now be near, arrived at what looked like a little open space,
somehow seeming rather familiar in its vague outlines.

Where had I seen such a place before? Sauntering round the margin, a
bush with a broken branch suddenly attracted my attention--a broken
bush with a long slide in the mud below it, and the stamp of Navy boots
in the soft turf! I glared at those signs for a moment, then with an
exclamation of chagrin recognised them only too well--it was the bush
whence I had picked the fruit, and the mark of my fall. An hour's hard
walking round some accursed woodland track had brought me exactly back
to the point I had started from--I was lost!

It really seemed to get twenty per cent darker as I made that
abominable discovery, and the position dawned in all its uncomfortable
intensity. There was nothing for it but to start off again, this time
judging my direction only by a light breath of air drifting the mist
tangles before it; and therein I made a great mistake, for the breeze
had shifted several points from the quarter whence it blew in the
morning.

Knowing nothing of this, I went forward with as much lightheartedness
as could be managed, humming a song to myself, and carefully putting
aside thoughts of warmth and supper, while the dusk increased and the
great forest vegetation seemed to grow ranker and closer at every step.

Another disconcerting thing was that the ground sloped gradually
downwards, not upwards as it should have done, till it seemed the path
lay across the flats of a forest-covered plain, which did not conform
to my wish of strik