WE FACE DISASTER This unexpected discovery came to me like a blow; the very breath seemed to desert my lungs, as I stared down at the vacant stream.

We had been out-generaled, tricked, and all our theories as to what had occurred were wrong.

The duty we had performed to the dead had cost us our own chance to escape.

Instead of being alone, as we had supposed, we were in the midst of enemies; we had been seen, watched, and while we loitered ashore, the murderers had stolen our boat and vanished, leaving us there helplessly marooned.

All this was plain enough now, when it was already too late to remedy the evil.