"Here!" cried Mark again wearily.

"Oh, there you are--are you?" cried the little sailor, struggling at
last to his side. "I thought I was never going to get back. More you
tries to find your way, more you loses it. I never see such a mess in
my life! Why don't they keep a gardener?"

Wretched as he was, hot, weary, and smarting and stinging from scratches
and pricks, Mark could not help laughing at the little sailor's
irritable manner.

"Ah, you may laugh, my lad, a-lying all so comfortable there! but if
you'd had such a slip as I did off a rock, and came down sitting on a
thorn as big as a marlin'-spike, you wouldn't show your white teeth like
that!"

"But I did, Billy," cried Mark, going off into a wild roar of laughter;
"and I'm horribly pricked and torn. But never mind that. Did you find
the way back to them?"

"Find your way back to 'em?--no. I never see such a muddle as the place
is in. Every bit's like every other bit; and when you mark down one
tree, meaning to come back to it, and do come back to it, why it's
another tree just like the one you thought it was. I say, Mr Mark,
sir, this place aren't 'chanted--is it?"

"Enchanted!--no. Why?"

"I d'know, only it's very queer like and puzzling. I can't make it out
a bit."

"Why, how do you mean?"

"Mean as you can't seem to box the compass like, and don't know which
way to steer, sir. I feels as if I should give it up."

"Give it up! What nonsense! Let's rest a few minutes and start again."

"Oh, I don't mind resting, sir; but I don't want to have to sleep out
here. Why, we've got nothing to eat, and no lights, and--no, I sha'n't
sit down, Mr Mark, sir. I don't want to disobey orders, but seems to
me as we'd better get back to what you called Gutta-percha Road."

"Now, look here, Billy, how can you be so stupid?" cried Mark pettishly.
"You know I want to get back; but which way are we to go?"

"Tell you what, sir, let's cooey," cried Billy, giving his leg a slap.
"That's the proper thing to do when you're out in the woods."

"Well, cooey, then," said Mark. "Go on."

"No, sir; you'd better do it," said Billy modestly. "I aren't practysed
it much."

"Never mind; go on."

"I'd a deal rather you would, Mr Mark, sir."

"But I can't. I never did such a thing in my life."

"Well, if it comes to that, sir, more didn't I."

"And you said you hadn't practised much."

"Well, sir, I haven't," said Billy coolly.

"Billy, you're