and that if he followed it he should
ultimately reach the very creek from which he had started in his canoe.
How far it was he could not reckon.

There were none of the shepherds who could be sent with a letter; they
were not hunters, and were unused to woodcraft; there was not one
capable of the journey. Unless he went himself he could not communicate
with Aurora. Two routes were open to him; one straight through the
forest on foot, the other by water, which latter entailed the
construction of another canoe. Journey by water, too, he had found was
subject to unforeseen risks. Till he could train some of the younger men
to row a galley, he decided not to attempt the voyage. There was but the
forest route left, and that he resolved to attempt; but when? And how,
without offending his friends?

Meantime, while he revolved the subject in his mind, he visited the
river and the shore of the great Lake, this time accompanied by ten
spears. The second visit only increased his admiration of the place and
his desire to take possession of it. He ascended a tall larch, from
whose boughs he had a view out over the Lake; the shore seemed to go
almost directly west. There were no islands, and no land in sight; the
water was open and clear. Next day he started for the sea; he wished to
see it for its own sake, and, secondly, because if he could trace the
trend of the shore, he would perhaps be able to put together a mental
map of the country, and so assure himself of the right route to pursue
when he started for Thyma Castle.

His guides took him directly south, and in three marches (three days)
brought him to the strand. This journey was not in a straight line; they
considered it was about five-and-thirty or forty miles to the sea, but
the country was covered with almost impenetrable forests, which
compelled a circuitous path. They had also to avoid a great ridge of
hills, and to slip through a pass or river valley, because these hills
were frequently traversed by the gipsies who were said, indeed, to
travel along them for hundreds of miles. Through the river valley,
therefore, which wound between the hills, they approached the sea, so
much on a level with it that Felix did not catch a distant glimpse.

In the afternoon of the third day they heard a low murmur, and soon
afterwards came out from the forest itself upon a wide bed of shingle,
thinly bordered with scattered bushes on the inland side. Climbing over
this, Felix saw th