“I know it,” he said quietly; “but we cannot get through this forest patch, so we must go wrong for a time, and then strike off to the right.”
But we found no opportunity of striking off to the right. Everywhere it was impenetrable forest, and at last we had to come to a halt on the edge, for the darkness was black, and to have gone on meant feeling our way step by step.
Chapter Twenty Six.
How I got into serious Difficulties.
It is not a pleasant place to pass a night, on the ground at the edge of a vast forest, inhabited by you know not what noxious beasts, while if you light a fire to scare them off you always do so with the idea that in scaring one enemy you may be giving notice to a worse where he may find you to make a prisoner or put you to death.
However we determined to risk being seen by savages, the more readily that we had gone so far now without seeing one, and in a short time a ruddy blaze was gilding the forest edge and the great sparks were cracking around the trees.
We had calculated upon being back at camp that night, so we had eaten all our food, and now, as we sat there by the fire hungry and tired, I began to think that we might have done worse than cut off the kangaroo’s tail before Jimmy had thrown it away.
Poor Jimmy! He too seemed to be bitterly regretting the idleness that had made him give up his self-imposed task, and the dismal hungry looks he kept giving me from time to time were ludicrous in the extreme.