“No, my men,” said the doctor, more firmly, “we are not going to despair, for if we keep going down-stream we must reach the main river at last.”
“That’s what I keep thinking, uncle,” cried Rodd; “but every time we turn out of one of these rivers we seem to get into another, and I want to know why it is that we have never yet come upon a sandy patch where we made a fire.”
Embayments of this kind they found again and again during the next few days of their, so to speak, imprisonment in this labyrinth, and in which they were fain to halt for food and sleep; but whether the flood had obliterated all signs of their occupation, or whether the places were absolutely fresh, they never knew.
One thing was determined on, and that to keep on with dogged British obstinacy till the problem was solved, and after losing count of the days that they had spent in the forest, and after vain usage of the compass, which had only seemed to lead them more and more astray, they had their reward one noon, when the boat was run up on to the sand of a forest nook which seemed strikingly familiar, and Rodd and Morny both sprang out, gun in hand, followed by Joe Cross, who excitedly cried—
“All right, gentlemen! Here we are at last! I’d just swear to this tree and that other big one right across the river.”
“Yes,” cried the doctor; “this, I am quite certain, is where we set up our tent the night we missed our guide.”
“The morning, uncle,” cried Rodd. “Yes, boy; I should have said the morning. Look, Morny! You do not speak. Isn’t this our last halting-place on our way up?”
The French lad gave his hands a despairing wave in the air.
“Yes,” he said; “that’s what I feel, sir. Why, we have been all these weary, weary days trying to get back to the river so that we might row away to the brig, and this is the spot from which we started!”
“Well, gentlemen,” cried Joe Cross, “I say hooray to that. Yes, this is the place, aren’t it, messmates?”