"Compasses are fine things," said Mark. "See, here we are with that little needle ready to spin one way or the other till it stands still without being shaken, and here it shows us exactly how we have been travelling along first to the south, then due west, and now here we are steadily going on to the north-west." "That's all very well at sea," said Dean, "but here we are on land. Suppose that compass isn't correct?" "There's a sceptic!" cried Mark. "Why, doesn't the sun rising and setting prove it to be all right? The needle always is correct unless it's near iron." "Or there is some natural cause to produce a variation," said the doctor, who was listening to the boys' remarks upon the pocket compass which he always carried. "We needn't doubt it here." "Then according to what you are showing, sir, in the fourteen days' since those pigmies left us--" "No, we left them," said Dean. "That's not correct," said Mark. "We stood still and saw them go into the forest, so they must have left us." "But we left our camp directly afterwards," said Dean, "and we have been travelling along by the edge of the forest ever since." "There, don't argue, boys," said the doctor. "It's quite evident that we have passed right round the forest and left it behind us, and I make it out that if instead of following the edge so as to be in the open where the bullocks could trek we could have walked straight through between the trees, we should have have been here long enough ago. Why, we are now about opposite to the pigmy settlement." "What!" cried Mark. "Oh, I say, let's stop and go in amongst the trees, and shout or cooey till we make them hear, and they will come and join us." "That's a likely idea," said Dean derisively. "What a fellow he is, isn't he, doctor? He's been grumbling ever since he lost his pet pig." "Well, I don't care. I did like the little chap." "Yes, just because you were nursing him and getting him better. Why, Mark, you are just like a great girl with a pet lamb." "Oh, am I?" said Mark sourly. "Yes, that you are. She's so fond of it because it's so white and skips after her, and she ties blue ribbons round its neck and is as pleased as Punch to have it running after her, and crying ma-a-a-a-a!" "You just wait till the doctor's gone off with father, and I'll punch your head," whispered Mark, as the doctor walked towards the waggon which they were following. "I don't care; so you are," said Dean; "and by-and-by the pretty little lamb grows up into a great, big, ugly, stupid-looking sheep good for nothing." "Yes, it is--mutton." "And that's how it would be," continued Dean, "with your pet savage. It would grow old and ugly, and a perfect nuisance, and be not so good as a sheep, because you could eat that, and even you wouldn't care to turn into an anthropop--what's his name?"