“Nay, my lad, didn’t seem to me as if you did. S’pose the trees kep’ it off at times. But all right, gentlemen, I shall soon hit it off, and we’ll get to the boat, have a good feed, and go to work again. Don’t look down, Mr Rob, sir! How do we know as Mr Jovanni isn’t there already waiting for us?”
Rob shook his head.
“Ah, you don’t know, sir. Seems queer, don’t it, to get so lost! but it ain’t the fust time. I’ve known men go into the forest only a score of yards or so and be completely gone, every step they took carrying ’em farther away and making ’em lose their heads till their mates found ’em.”
“Stop! Which way are you going now?”
“This way,” said Shaddy.
“But that’s back—the way we came.”
Shaddy laughed, and without another word forced his way again in among the trees.
“I give up,” said Brazier in despair. “It is too confusing for ordinary brains. I could have taken an oath that he was wrong.”
He answered a whistle, and they stood waiting till the crackling and rustling made by their guide’s passage ceased.
“I couldn’t have believed that we came so far,” said Rob, breaking the silence.