Amid so many obstructions his progress was terribly slow.  It was seven o’clock when he started; when it occurred to him to look at his watch he was startled to find that two hours had passed.  He could not tell how far he had come, nor guess how far he had yet to go.  He hesitated; should he go back?  Was there any use in struggling further?  What chance was there in this dense forest of finding what he sought?  Might he not even miss the savages’ camp altogether, go beyond it, leave it either on his right hand or his left, or perhaps stumble upon it suddenly, and be discovered before he had a chance to flee?  But he put these questions from his mind.  He had set out to find the camp; no harm had befallen him.  There was a strain of doggedness in his nature; he had won his scholarships at school and at Cambridge by sheer grit; his tutor had declared that Tom Smith was certainly not brilliant, but he was much better:  he was sound and steady; and the same qualities that had won him successes which more brilliant men envied, came out in these novel circumstances in which he was placed.  Tom decided to go on.

Presently he came to a break in the woodland; he saw the stars overhead.  He was very wary now, and waited at the edge of the clearing for a long time, peering all round, turning to listen on every side, before he crossed and entered another belt of forest beyond.  Again he had to struggle through darkness and dense entanglements, then suddenly he started; far ahead he thought he discerned amid the blackness the dull glow of a fire.  With infinite caution he picked his way through the thinning undergrowth; the glow increased; and at length he found himself on the edge of a wide open space in the midst of which there was a camp fire, and around it the rude grass huts of the savages.  He saw no one, heard no sound; all were asleep.

Stealthily he crept round the encampment.  Here and there he saw cooking-pots, and caught the faint odour of roasted flesh.  Had the savages any store of food, he wondered.  If not, his journey was vain.  The fire did not give light enough for him to see anything very clearly.  At last, however, when he had almost made the circuit of the camp, he saw a man move out from one of the huts towards the fire, on which he cast some logs that lay beside it.  A flame shot up.  As the man returned to his hut, he put his hand into one of the cooking-pots and drew out the limb of a small animal, from which he tore the flesh with his teeth.  Tom was satisfied.  No doubt each of the pots contained a quantity of food.  Surely if he brought his comrades to the spot, and they fell upon the camp suddenly, with loud cries and the noise of firearms, they might strike panic into the savages, and at least have time to possess themselves of the contents of the pots.

He looked at his watch.  It was past ten o’clock.