It was late in the afternoon when the Expeditionary Force halted on a hill and surveyed with interest a little distant cluster of towers. It was the first sign of habitation they had met with in a long, hard march.
Their preliminary inspection of the country in the morning had shown them only gently rolling plains, with patches of dense woods here and there, which seemed to be quite uninhabited, so it was a toss-up which way they should take. Vanderdecken had said that since they did not know the proper course to steer it was best to make one and stick to it; even if it led them away from the lost ones the same might be said of any course, and they had to go somewhere. So they selected sou’west-by-west and tramped it steadily for many hours, marvelling at the strange absence of natives or roads or houses. Nor were there signs of dragons or unicorns or other fierce fauna rumoured to be in the land beyond the river. The fiercest thing they saw was a huge rabbit, with claws; and all that it did was to make a nasty face at them and run away.
The course was changed after a midday rest and they went sou’east-by-south, Vanderdecken having given his opinion that since they had met with nothing to guide them in the search it would be best to go about on the other tack, which means to go zigzag. And so at last they came to the hill-top and saw the distant towers, deep in waving woods. The direction was taken, and they went down and through the trees, and another couple of hours’ march brought them to the same compact little stronghold in which, two days before, the wanderers they were searching for had made themselves so much at home.