When Dudley arrived at the spot where the savannah ended, he chose a passage through a more open part of the belt of woodland which separated it from a still larger extent of grazing ground, and kept a keen watch upon his right, that he might not be attacked unprepared. He saw nothing, and heard nothing, however, for five or six hundred yards, till he was just issuing forth again into the meadows beyond, and had his eye upon the top of Mount Gambier, seen over the wavy outline of the scrub; but then a cry was heard, more like the sudden yelp of a dog when hurt, than any sound produced by a human throat, and something came whizzing through the trees towards him. The natural impulse was to jump aside at once; but before he could do it, a long and apparently heavy spear descended within two yards of him, burying its sharp point deep in the ground, and quivering as it stood nearly erect, like a young tree newly planted. Dudley instantly cocked both barrels of his gun, and looked towards the spot whence the missile came. But nothing was to be seen but the trunks of the trees, with here and there a little patch of underwood. No moving thing was within sight, but the branches gently agitated by the fresh morning air. Pulling the spear out of the ground, the wanderer carried it away with him as well as his gun, and walking quickly on, got as fast as possible into the open ground again, which now lay before him, unbroken for an extent of nearly three miles. A wood of tall trees was prolonged upon his right; and on his left was a piece of uneven bushy land, between the meadow and a sterile tract stretching to the sea-shore; but between the two covers, the space of open meadow ground, with nothing but a solitary tree starting up here and there, varied in breadth from a mile to a mile and a half, so that, by keeping a middle course, he was out of reach of spear or arrow sent from beneath the trees. He walked on, then, quietly looking around him, indeed, from time to time, but displaying no sign of fear or haste; and more than once he thought he caught sight of a native in the wood, who did not venture to come out into the open meadow.