'Summat burning, Mr. Grinson,' he said.
'Well, you 've a long nose, Ephraim. You 're right, me lad; I smell it myself.' He coughed lightly to attract the attention of Trentham, a few yards on his right. The four men grouped themselves. Hoole took out his revolver. They stood in silence, listening, looking in the direction from which the smell of burning came. There was no sound of crackling, no sign of smoke, and after a minute or two they went forward cautiously.
Soon they halted in astonishment. They had come upon a stretch of blackened undergrowth, upon which lay a few trees that bore the mark of an axe; others, still erect, were black for many feet from their base. The air was full of the smell of burnt wood.
'Surely the madman didn't set fire to the trees?' said Trentham.
'This wasn't done to-day,' said Hoole, touching a blackened trunk. 'It's not hot. But it wasn't long ago. Look here; the remains of a ladder.'
He had picked up at the foot of a tree what was clearly the charred remnant of a ladder of bamboo.
'Bless my eyes, sir, 'tis a village,' said Grinson. 'When I was at Moresby some years ago they showed me a photograph of one--a tree village, the little houses perched up aloft, and ladders to get to 'em. There 's been a fire, that's clear.'
'And no fire-engine,' said Meek. 'A terrible calamity, to be sure.'
Hoole had gone a few steps ahead.
'Here 's the sea,' he called. 'We 're on the edge of a cliff. And by Jove! Trentham, look here!'