ting. If they did not reach the camp of the savages
before dawn their toil and fatigue would be wasted, and their peril
greater than it had ever been.

Here and there, where the trees grew less close together, he felt a
slight breeze blowing in his face, and at length he detected a faint
smell of wood smoke. He halted, and told the rest, in a whisper, that
they were approaching a settlement. From this point they advanced
still more slowly and cautiously. Then, with a suddenness that took
them aback, they came to the edge of a clearing. At first Tom was not
sure whether it was the same that he had seen before. He had indeed
approached it from a different direction. But a glance around
satisfied him on this point, and the party stood within the shelter of
the trees while Underhill gave his orders. They were to fire one
shot, then rush forward with loud shouts, seize what food they could
lay hands on, and flee back in all haste. There was no time to be
lost, for the sky already gave hint of dawn.

Underhill had scarcely finished speaking when there was a cry from a
point near at hand. They had approached the camp from the wind-yard
side; the breeze had carried either some murmur of Underhill's voice,
low as he had spoken, or some faint scent which the natives, as keen
in their perceptions as wild animals, had detected. Instantly the camp
was in commotion: the dusky warriors poured forth from their little
huts, and swept, a wild, yelling horde, upon the weary company.

CHAPTER X

SOME PRAUS AND A JUNK

Smith's destination, on leaving Penang, was Port Darwin in the
Northern Territory of Australia. He had never been at that port, and
knew that a few years before it had been little more than a collection
of grass humpys, inhabited by Chinese and Malays, with an iron shed
for a Custom House, and a vast expanse of forest and jungle behind.
But it was the principal port in the northern part of Australia, and
he had no doubt that at Palmerston, the thriving town on the eastern
shore, he would be able to obtain the necessary supply of petrol and
oil.

His map informed him that his course lay across the Malay Peninsula,
Dutch Borneo, and the islands of Celebes and Timor. It was necessary
to rise to a considerable height to cross the hills that run like a
spine on the Malay Peninsula, and having passed those, he came in
little over an hour to the eastern coast, about a hundred and fifty
miles north of Singapore. In an