you three or four times after that," resumed Svorenssen, "and
once you passed so close that we easily recognised both of you.
Unfortunately, we were both up a tree at the time, and were unable to
descend, for the reason that there was a savage brute of a wild pig that
had driven us up aloft and was waiting below for us to come down again.
Of course we shouted our loudest, and as long as there seemed any
possibility that you might hear; but it was no good. I suspect it was
the roar of the surf on the reef that drowned our voices. But every
time we saw you, if you were not going alongside the wreck you were
steering north. So at length we came to the conclusion that you had
probably rigged up some sort of a shelter in that direction; and we
accordingly agreed to work along-shore in a northerly direction, and try
to find out where you had bestowed yourselves.

"To you, sailing along easily and comfortably in your boat, I dare say
it would seem no very arduous job to work your way along a few miles of
open beach; but to us two, circumstanced as we were, in a place swarming
with savage brutes that seemed to be for ever lurking on the watch for
us; without the means of kindling a fire as a protection; and with only
our sheath-knives as weapons; obliged to enter the woods at the peril of
our lives to obtain food--and as often as not driven out again without
the food; able to sleep only during the day-time--and very often not
even then; compelled to seek shelter in trees for hours at a time--ay,
and often enough for a whole day--to save our lives, it was simply--
well, there are no words strong enough to describe it. Why, there were
days--plenty of them--when we did not make so much as a mile of
progress; when, from one cause or another, we did not make a fathom,
much less a mile. No wonder that we were so long a time working our way
round to you. Indeed, now that I look back upon the innumerable
difficulties that we had to contend with, my only surprise is that we
ever managed to get here at all.

"Then, as an appropriate climax of all our difficulties, the forest one
day caught fire--perhaps you saw the blaze?--and almost the whole of the
island was swept clean of every green thing. Phew! that was an
experience, with a vengeance! If I had not beheld the scene with my own
eyes I could never have believed there were so many wild creatures in
all the world as we then saw; great, fierce monkeys, bigger than a man;
littl