"Yet we passed no one on horseback," said Simon. "What do you make of it?"
She did not reply: but a little later, as they reached the top of a slope, she showed him a broad river mingling with the horizon and barring their progress. When they were nearer, they saw that it was flowing from their right to their left; and, when they were nearer still, it reminded them of the stream which they had left that morning. The colour, the banks, the windings were the same. Simon, disconcerted, examined the country around to discover something that was different; but the landscape was identical, as a whole and in every detail.
"What does this mean?" muttered Simon. "There must be an inexplicable mirage . . . for, after all, it is impossible to admit that we can have made a mistake."
But proofs of the blunder committed were becoming more numerous. The track of the two horses having led them away from the cable, they went down to the river-bank and there, on a flat space bearing the traces of an encampment, they were compelled to recognize the spot where they had passed the previous night!
Thus, in a disastrous fit of distraction due to the attack by the Indians and the death of the younger Mazzani, both of them, in their excitement, had lost their bearings, and, trusting to the only indication which they had discovered, had gone back to the submarine cable. Then, when they resumed their journey, there had been nothing, no landmark of any kind, to reveal the fact that they were following the cable in the reverse direction, that they were retracing the path already travelled and that they were returning, after an exhausting and fruitless effort, to the spot which they had left some hours ago!
Simon yielded to a momentary fit of despondency. That which was only a vexatious delay assumed in his eyes the importance of an irreparable event. The upheaval of the 4th of June had caused this corner of the world to relapse into absolute barbarism; and to struggle against the obstacles which it presented called for qualities which he did not possess. While the marauders and outcasts felt at home from the beginning in this new state of things, he, Simon Dubosc, was vainly seeking for the solution of the problems propounded by the exceptional circumstances. Where was he to go? What was he to do? Against whom was he to defend himself? How was he to rescue Isabel?
As completely lost in the new land as he would have been in the immensity of the sea, he ascended the course of the river, following, with a distraught gaze, the trace of the two trails marking the sand, which was wet in places. He recognized the prints left by Dolores' sandals.
"It's no use going in that direction," she said. "I explored all the surrounding country this morning."
He went on, however, against the girl's wishes and with no other object than that of acting and moving. And, so doing, in some fifteen minutes' time he came upon a spot where the bank was trampled and muddy, like the banks of a river at a ford.
He stopped suddenly. Horses had passed that way. The mark of their shoes was plainly visible.