we shall have logged over forty by eight bells, and I
should say that even the Malays will hardly come as far as that,
especially as the men who take this side won't be sure that we have not
gone the other, and have been caught by their mates."

They kept steadily on, but their speed gradually abated, and for the last
two hours before the hands of Stephen's watch pointed to twelve o'clock,
they stumbled rather than walked.

"I think that will do," he said at last, "it is nearly eight bells now.
Let us tread in each other's footsteps as well as we can, so that there
shall only be one line of marks."

The change from the firm sand to the yielding drift--in which their feet
sank three or four inches--finished them, and although they had not more
than a hundred yards to walk to the trees, it seemed to them that they
would never get there. At last they reached the edge of the forest,
staggered a few paces in, and then without a word dropped down and almost
instantaneously fell asleep.

The sun was high when they woke. Stephen was the first to get on to his
feet. He went to the edge of the trees and looked across. To his
satisfaction he saw that the drifting sand had obliterated all trace of
their passage.

"Then I vote," Wilcox said, when he was told the news, "that we go a bit
further into the wood and camp there for the day. I am just aching from
head to foot."

"I think we must go on a bit further, Wilcox. You see there are no
cocoa-nuts here, and we must keep on until we come to a grove of them. The
trees are never far apart, and we may not have a mile to go. We certainly
can't stay here all day without something to eat and drink. You see we
threw our nuts away when we started."

"I suppose you are right, sir," the sailor said, slowly getting up on to
his feet; "but it is hard, after such a run as we made yesterday, to have
to get up anchor again."

"Well, we can take it easily, Wilcox, and we will stop at the first
cocoa-nut tree we come to. Now, Tom, as we go along you shall tell us
about yesterday, we have not heard a word yet."

"Well," began Joyce, "we paddled up the river, as you know. It was as much
as we could do sometimes to make head against the current. I suppose we
had been gone about an hour when we saw a troop of monkeys on the boughs
of a tree overhanging the water. They did not seem a bit afraid of us, but
chattered and screamed. We shot three of them. I did not fire, for I could
not bring mys