the brook.

Another half-hour passed, and still the absentees failed to make their
appearance. Max now professed to be suffering from the pangs of hunger,
and longed for the sight even of the much-abused cocoa-nut tree. At
last our patience being utterly exhausted, we resolved to go in search
of Arthur and his suite, whose protracted absence greatly surprised us.

On reaching the point, or bend, behind which they had disappeared, we
hallooed loudly, but there was no answer. As we proceeded, the ground
became very rough and broken, and the bed of the brook was full of loose
rocks. A little further on, the noise of a waterfall was heard, and
after one or two more turns, we reached a spot where the stream leaped
down a precipice some twenty feet. Our further progress in the
direction we were pursuing was barred by a wall of rock; an active and
fearless climber might, it is true, have scaled it by the aid of the
stunted shrubs and jutting crags upon its face, but we knew that Arthur
accompanied by Eiulo and Johnny, could not have passed on by any such
route.

Proceeding to the left, along the foot of the precipice, and pausing at
short intervals to repeat our halloos, we at last reached a wide fissure
in the rock, by scrambling through which we gained the higher level.
This was in all probability a part of the ridge which Arthur had seen
from the islet. We now returned along the brow of the precipice until
we came to the waterfall, where we shouted again, but still without
getting any answer. To push the search further in this direction seemed
useless, for it was morally certain that Arthur would not have continued
beyond this point up the stream; the understanding with which he had
left us, forbade any such supposition.

We began now to feel alarmed, and to fear that some accident had
befallen them, though of what nature we were at a loss to conjecture.
Morton suggested the possibility that they had taken the opposite bank
of the brook, and that while we were looking for them, they might have
returned to the islet. This seemed not improbable, and striving hard to
convince ourselves that it must be so, we regained the lower level by
the same pass through which we had ascended, and hastened along the base
of the height, and down the shore of the stream till we reached the
islet again. But our companions were not there. Still, they might have
returned during our absence, and supposing that we had started homewar