Round the World in Seven Days

by Herbert Strang

Stealthily he crept round the encampment. Here and there he saw cooking-pots, and caught the faint odour of roasted flesh. Had the savages any store of food, he wondered. If not, his journey was vain. The fire did not give light enough for him to see anything very clearly. At last, however, when he had almost made the circuit of the camp, he saw a man move out from one of the huts towards the fire, on which he cast some logs that lay beside it. A flame shot up. As the man returned to his hut, he put his hand into one of the cooking-pots and drew out the limb of a small animal, from which he tore the flesh with his teeth. Tom was satisfied. No doubt each of the pots contained a quantity of food. Surely if he brought his comrades to the spot, and they fell upon the camp suddenly, with loud cries and the noise of firearms, they might strike panic into the savages, and at least have time to possess themselves of the contents of the pots.

He looked at his watch. It was past ten o'clock.

He could return more quickly than he came, and, if he did not lose his way, would regain his camp within half-an-hour after midnight. There would be plenty of time for the whole party to reach the savages' encampment before the dawn rendered it dangerous. Moving away slowly until he was out of earshot, he then walked as quickly as he could back through the forest. But he was not a mariner, and even a mariner would have been at fault in tracking his course by compass through dense forest. He judged his general direction accurately, but he swerved a little too far to the right, and suddenly found himself on the brink of the cliff. He dared not go back into the forest, lest he should lose more time in wandering, so he decided to keep as close to the sea as possible, thinking that he must in time arrive at his camp. His path was tortuous; once he had to strike inland to avoid a deep, wooded ravine; but presently he heard the sound of falling water, and, quickening his steps, came almost suddenly upon the barricade.

The whole company were awake. They had almost given him up for lost. It was one o'clock. Underhill sternly checked a cheer from the sailors, when Tom ran up. He told what he had seen.

"Hadn't we better wait till to-morrow night?" suggested Dr. Smith.

"To-night! to-night!" cried the men eagerly. The knowledge that food was within reach of them was too much for famishing men. Who knew if they would have strength or sanity for the task after another sweltering day? Underhill could not refuse them; he gave orders for the whole company to march at once.

None was left to guard the camp; the little company of sixteen could not be divided. They set off in single file, Tom leading the way, not because he had any hope of treading in his former course, but because he alone had traversed the forest, and he alone had a compass.

The plan of lighting fires to guide them on the return journey was given up. The forest was so dense that such fires would have been of little use; further, they might cause an immense conflagration which, though it would effectually scare the enemy, would destroy what the famished men so urgently needed, food.

Their progress was even slower than Tom's had been. They had to stop frequently to make sure that all were together, and, as ill luck would have it, Tom found that he was leading them through a part of the forest where the entanglements were more intricate and less penetrable than those he had formerly encountered. But he plodded on doggedly, speaking to no one of his anxiety when a glance at his watch told how time was fleeting. If they did not reach the camp of the savages before dawn their toil and fatigue would be wasted, and their peril greater than it had ever been.

Here and there, where the trees grew less close together, he felt a slight breeze blowing in his face, and at length he detected a faint smell of wood smoke. He halted, and told the rest, in a whisper, that they were approaching a settlement. From this point they advanced still more slowly and cautiously. Then, with a suddenness that took them aback, they came to the edge of a clearing. At first Tom was not sure whether it was the same that he had seen before. He had indeed approached it from a different direction. But a glance around satisfied him on this point, and the party stood within the shelter of the trees while Underhill gave his orders. They were to fire one shot, then rush forward with loud shouts, seize what food they could lay hands on, and flee back in all haste. There was no time to be lost, for the sky already gave hint of dawn.