"I don't know how far. But we haven't been out of it more than five or six minutes, and this is certainly the channel."
"Nothing is 'certainly' in the Monnlungs! And five minutes is quite enough time to get lost in. I don't recognize anything here—we ought to be in sight of a tree that has a profile, like a face."
"Perhaps you wouldn't know it at night."
"It's unmistakable. No, I am sure we are wrong. Please go back—go back at once to the narrow place."
"Where is 'back?'" murmured Winthrop to himself, after he had surveyed the water behind him.
And the question was a necessary one. What he had thought was "certainly the channel" seemed to exist only in front; there was no channel behind, there were only broad tree-filled water spaces, vague and dark. They could see nothing of the thicker foliage of the "narrow place."
Margaret clasped her hands. "We're lost!"
"No, we're not lost; at least we were not seven minutes ago. It won't take long to go over all the water that is seven minutes from here." He took out one of the torches and inserted it among the roots of a cypress, so that it could hold itself upright. "That's our guide; we can always come back to that, and start again."
Margaret no longer tried to direct; she sat with her face towards him, leaving the guidance to him.
He started back in what he thought was the course they had just traversed. But they did not come to the defile of flowers; and suddenly they lost sight of their beacon.