e time to save
them. He started up, and told Rodier, who had begun his customary task
of cleaning the engine, the conclusion to which he had come.

"We will ascend at once," he said, "and scour the neighbourhood. The
forest is thick, but perhaps there are clear spaces in it. Let us lose
no time."

They dragged the aeroplane to the inner extremity of the enclosure,
turned it round, and started it towards the sea. In less than a minute
it was two hundred feet in the air. Then Smith wheeled round and
steered across the camp, intending to take that as a centre, and
strike out along successive radii, so that in the course of an hour or
two, even at moderate speed, he would have searched a considerable
extent of country in the shape of a fan. It was a question how far he
should proceed in one direction, but relying on his idea that the
evacuation of the camp could only recently have taken place, he
resolved to content himself at first with a distance of about ten
miles.

Having risen to a height of about three hundred feet, he found that he
commanded a view of many miles of the country. Far to the south were
the mountains; all around was forest, broken here and there by patches
of open rocky ground. Beneath him the trees were so densely packed
that a whole army might have been encamped among them without giving
a sign of its presence. He sped in a straight line west-north-west of
the fort, at a speed of between forty and fifty miles an hour; to go
faster would have rendered careful exploration of the country
difficult. Having completed ten miles without passing over a single
spot of clear ground, he flew about five miles due west, then turned
the machine and steered back towards the fort along the next imaginary
radius of his circle. He had arranged that Rodier should scan the
country to the left while he himself kept as good a look-out to the
right as was possible when he had engine and compass to attend to.
They had not flown far on this backward journey when Rodier, who was
using his binocular, shouted that he saw, on a headland far to the
left, what appeared to be a native village. Smith instantly steered
towards it. It was the first evidence of human habitation they had as
yet come across, and even at the risk of losing his bearings he must
examine it. He could now afford to go at full speed, and a few minutes
brought him above the village, which was a collection of rude huts
perched on a steep headland overlooking t