s. Instead of returning directly to the
camp, therefore, he pursued his flight across the forest in the same
direction in which the startled natives had run. Now for the first
time he wished that he could have had a silent engine, for then his
ears might have given the information which failed his eyes. Though he
flew to and fro for some time in the vicinity of the tree-houses, he
discovered no other break in the forest; and the impossibility of
knowing what was going on beneath that vast screen of foliage began
to affect him with hopelessness of success.

He wished it were possible to descend in the clearing, and continue
his search on the ground. The appearance of the aeroplane was so
terrifying to the islanders that he need fear no opposition to his
landing. But the idea occurred to him only to be at once dismissed.
When once among the trees, away from the aeroplane, he would be no
longer sacrosanct. Those islanders who had actually witnessed his
descent might fear him as a denizen of the sky; but any others that
met him in the forest would not be restrained by superstitious fear
from, treating him as an enemy. Further, having once involved himself
in the obscure and pathless depths of the forest, he might wander for
hours, or even days, without finding the aeroplane. It was an
impossible course of action. Hopeless as he was becoming, he felt that
he could do nothing better than persevere as he had begun; after all,
he had as yet covered only a small wedge of the segment he had
proposed to himself.

But he now found himself in a difficulty. In the excitement of his
recent discovery he had neglected to keep a watch upon the compass,
and he was now at a loss to know the precise direction in which to
steer. He must certainly go to the east, but he could not tell whether
he was north or south of the camp. It occurred to him that by rising
to a greater height he might probably be able to descry the camp, so
he planed upwards until he attained an altitude of nearly two thousand
feet, Rodier searching the country seawards through his binocular.

"I see it!" he cried at length, adding, as Smith began to steer
towards it, "Wait a minute, mister; I see all the country better here;
I can pick out the clearings, though they are only dark blots; but yet
I can do it."

He swept the country for miles around. Beyond the forest, far to the
west, there were stretches of rugged uplands, bare of vegetation. It
was not at all likely