“It does not matter. These men have purposely lost us, and we do not know in the least the direction of the river.”
Adams’s eyes fell on a bundle wrapped in cloth. It was the relic.
He knelt down beside it, and carefully removed the cloth without disturbing the position of the skull.
He noted the direction in which the eye-holes pointed.
“We will go in that direction,” said he. “We have lost ourselves, but God has not lost us.”
“Let it be so,” replied Berselius.
Adams collected what provisions he could carry, tied the skull to his belt with a piece of rope taken from the tent, and led the way amidst the trees.
Two days later, at noon, still lost, unutterably weary, they saw through the trees before them a sight to slay all hope.
It was the tent and the litter just as they had left them.
Two days’ heart-breaking labour had brought them to this by all sorts of paths.