ys in the south, rendered it quite
certain that the _Dream_ had not crossed the line.

Two hours after he had started Godfrey reckoned the distance he had
travelled at about five miles, considering several circuits which he had
had to make owing to the density of the forest. The second group of
hills could not be far away.

Already the trees were getting farther apart from each other, forming
isolated groups, and the rays of light penetrated more easily through
the lofty branches. The ground began slightly to slope, and then
abruptly to rise.

Although he was somewhat fatigued, Godfrey had enough will not to
slacken his pace. He would doubtless have run had it not been for the
steepness of the earlier ascents.

He had soon got high enough to overlook the general mass of the verdant
dome which stretched away behind him, and whence several heads of trees
here and there emerged.

But Godfrey did not dream of looking back. His eyes never quitted the
line of the denuded ridge, which showed itself about 400 or 500 feet
before and above him. That was the barrier which all the time hid him
from the eastern horizon.

A tiny cone, obliquely truncated, overlooked this rugged line and joined
on with its gentle slope to the sinuous crest of the hills.

"There! there!" said Godfrey, "that is the point I must reach! The top
of that cone! And from there what shall I see?--A town?--A village?--A
desert?"

Highly excited, Godfrey mounted the hill, keeping his elbows at his
chest to restrain the beating of his heart. His panting tired him, but
he had not the patience to stop so as to recover himself. Were he to
have fallen half fainting on the summit of the cone which shot up about
100 feet above his head, he would not have lost a minute in hastening
towards it.

A few minutes more and he would be there. The ascent seemed to him steep
enough on his side, an angle perhaps of thirty or thirty-five degrees.
He helped himself up with hands and feet; he seized on the tufts of
slender herbs on the hill-side, and on a few meagre shrubs, mastics
and myrtles, which stretched away up to the top.

A last effort was made! His head rose above the platform of the cone,
and then, lying on his stomach, his eyes gazed at the eastern horizon.

It was the sea which formed it. Twenty miles off it united with the line
of the sky!

He turned round.

Still sea--west of him, south of him, north of him! The immense ocean
surrounding him on all s