mb from limb, and
in the act of being devoured!

* * * * *

But the sentence of the desert on the blind is death, trap vultures as
cunningly as you will, and devour them as ferociously. The eye is
everything in the battle of the strong against the weak. And so it came
about that two days later a pair of leopards from the woods to the
northeast fought with the figure, which fought with teeth and hands and
feet, whilst the yellow-eyed kites looked on at a battle that would have
turned with horror the heart of Flamininus.

CHAPTER XXV

TOWARD THE SUNSET

When Berselius, standing on the ridge, had looked long enough at the
country before him, taking in its every detail with delight, they started
again on their march, Berselius leading.

They had no guide. The only plan in Adams's head was to march straight
west toward the sunset for a distance roughly equivalent to the forced
march they had made in pursuit of the herd, and then to strike at right
angles due north and try to strike the wood isthmus of the two great
forests making up the forest of M'Bonga.

But the sunset is a wide mark and only appears at sunset. They had no
compass; the elephant folk had made away with all the instruments of the
expedition. They must inevitably stray from the true direction, striking
into that infernal circle which imprisons all things blind and all things
compassless. Even should they, by a miracle, strike the isthmus of woods,
the forest would take them, confuse them, hand them from tree to tree and
glade to glade, and lose them at last and for ever in one of the million
pockets which a forest holds open for the lost.

The stout heart of the big man had not quailed before this prospect. He
had a fighting chance; that was enough for him. But now at the re-start,
as Berselius stepped forward and took the lead, a hope sprang up in his
breast. A tremendous and joyful idea occurred to him. Was it possible that
Berselius would guide them back?

The memory that the man possessed was so keen, his anxiety to pierce the
veil before him was so overpowering, was it possible that like a hound
hunting by sight instead of smell, he would lead them straight?

Only by following the exact track they had come by, could Berselius pierce
back into that past he craved to see. Only by putting tree to tree and
ridge to ridge, memory to memory, could he collect what he had lost.

Could he do this?