In the course of a fortnight, upwards of six thousand men had joined the Confederacy, and Felix wrote down the names of twenty tribes on a sheet of parchment which he took from his chest.  A hut had long since been built for him; but he received all the deputations, and held the assemblies which were necessary, in the circular fort.  He was so pressed to visit the tribes that he could not refuse to go to the nearest, and thus his journey was again postponed.  During this progress from tribal camp to tribal camp, Felix gained the adhesion of twelve more, making a total of thirty-two names of camps, representing about eight thousand spearmen.  With pride Felix reflected that he commanded a far larger army than the Prince of Ponze.  But he was not happy.

Months had now elapsed since he had parted from Aurora.  There were no means of communicating with her.  A letter could be conveyed only by a special messenger; he could not get a messenger, and even if one had been forthcoming, he could not instruct him how to reach Thyma Castle.  He did not know himself; the country was entirely unexplored.  Except that the direction was west, he had no knowledge whatever.  He had often inquired of the shepherds, but they were perfectly ignorant.  Anker’s Gate was the most westerly of all their settlements, which chiefly extended eastwards.  Beyond Anker’s Gate was the trackless forest, of which none but the Bushmen knew anything.  They did not understand what he meant by a map; all they could tell him was that the range of mountainous hills continued westerly and southerly for an unascertained distance, and that the country was uninhabited except by wandering gipsy tribes.

South was the sea, the salt water; but they never went down to it, or near it, because there was no sustenance for their flocks and herds.  Till now, Felix did not know that he was near the sea; he resolved at once to visit it.  As nearly as he could discover, the great fresh water Lake did not reach any farther south; Wolfstead was not far from its southern margin.  He concluded, therefore, that the shore of the Lake must run continually westward, and that if he followed it he should ultimately reach the very creek from which he had started in his canoe.  How far it was he could not reckon.

There were none of the shepherds who could be sent with a letter; they were not hunters, and were unused to woodcraft; there was not one capable of the journey.  Unless he went himself he could not communicate with Aurora.  Two routes were open to him; one straight through the forest on foot, the other by water, which latter entailed the construction of another canoe.  Journey by water, too, he had found was subject to unforeseen risks.  Till he could train some of the younger men to row a galley, he decided not to attempt the voyage.  There was but the forest route left, and that he resolved to attempt; but when?  And how, without offending his friends?