ch a band to embark with a child, since to disembark
with one was dangerous.

To lose the child was much simpler of accomplishment.

And this child, of whom we have caught a glimpse in the shadow of the
solitudes of Portland, by whom had he been cast away?

To all appearance by Comprachicos.

CHAPTER V.

THE TREE OF HUMAN INVENTION.

It might be about seven o'clock in the evening. The wind was now
diminishing--a sign, however, of a violent recurrence impending. The
child was on the table-land at the extreme south point of Portland.

Portland is a peninsula; but the child did not know what a peninsula
is, and was ignorant even of the name of Portland. He knew but one
thing, which is, that one can walk until one drops down. An idea is a
guide; he had no idea. They had brought him there and left him there.
_They_ and _there_--these two enigmas represented his doom. _They_ were
humankind. _There_ was the universe. For him in all creation there was
absolutely no other basis to rest on but the little piece of ground
where he placed his heel, ground hard and cold to his naked feet. In the
great twilight world, open on all sides, what was there for the child?
Nothing.

He walked towards this Nothing. Around him was the vastness of human
desertion.

He crossed the first plateau diagonally, then a second, then a third. At
the extremity of each plateau the child came upon a break in the ground.
The slope was sometimes steep, but always short; the high, bare plains
of Portland resemble great flagstones overlapping each other. The south
side seems to enter under the protruding slab, the north side rises over
the next one; these made ascents, which the child stepped over nimbly.
From time to time he stopped, and seemed to hold counsel with himself.
The night was becoming very dark. His radius of sight was contracting.
He now only saw a few steps before him.

All of a sudden he stopped, listened for an instant, and with an almost
imperceptible nod of satisfaction turned quickly and directed his steps
towards an eminence of moderate height, which he dimly perceived on his
right, at the point of the plain nearest the cliff. There was on the
eminence a shape which in the mist looked like a tree. The child had
just heard a noise in this direction, which was the noise neither of the
wind nor of the sea, nor was it the cry of animals. He thought that some
one was there, and in a few strides he was at the foot of the hill