o be constantly on their guard.

However, in spite of the recommendations which were addressed to him,
Tartlet, tripping against an occasional stump, had two or three falls
which might have complicated matters. Godfrey was beginning to regret
having brought such a clumsy assistant. Indeed, the poor man could not
be much help to him. Doubtless he would have been worth more left behind
at Will Tree; or, if he would not consent to that, hidden away in some
nook in the forest. But it was too late. An hour after he had left the
sequoia group, Godfrey and his companion had come a mile--only a
mile--for the path was not easy beneath the high vegetation and between
the luxuriant shrubs. Neither one nor the other of our friends had seen
anything suspicious.

Hereabouts the trees thinned out for about a hundred yards or less, the
river ran between naked banks, the country round was barer.

Godfrey stopped. He carefully observed the prairie to the right and left
of the stream.

Still there was nothing to disquiet him, nothing to indicate the
approach of savages. It is true that as they could not but believe the
island inhabited, they would not advance without precaution, in fact
they would be as careful in ascending the little river as Godfrey was in
descending it. It was to be supposed therefore that if they were
prowling about the neighbourhood, they would also profit by the shelter
of the trees or the high bushes of mastics and myrtles which formed such
an excellent screen.

It was a curious though very natural circumstance that, the farther they
advanced, Tartlet, perceiving no enemy, little by little lost his
terror, and began to speak with scorn of "those cannibal
laughing-stocks." Godfrey, on the contrary, became more anxious, and it
was with greater precaution than ever that he crossed the open space and
regained the shadow of the trees. Another hour led them to the place
where the banks, beginning to feel the effects of the sea's vicinity,
were only bordered with stunted shrubs, or sparse grasses.

Under these circumstances it was difficult to keep hidden or rather
impossible to proceed without crawling along the ground.

This is what Godfrey did, and also what he advised Tartlet to do.

"There are not any savages! There are not any cannibals! They have all
gone!" said the professor.

"There are!" answered Godfrey quickly, in a low voice, "They ought to be
here! Down Tartlet, get down! Be ready to fire, but don'