Suddenly all traces of the marks vanished. He hunted high and low, but all to no purpose; they ended as abruptly as if the pursued had been snatched up into the heavens. Two nights and two days he wandered to and fro. He was chilled to the bone, and was in a high fever. At last he had to give in, and lay under the shelter of a tree. The warmth of the sun revived him, and he crawled weakly to a bush on which grew luscious plums, ate his fill and slept. When he awoke he felt better and stronger. Perhaps he had been dreaming—the footprints _must_ go on. But no, they came to an end at a grassy edge, and there was no mark to show that human beings had passed that way. He spent that day hunting for a sign of the fugitives, but was unsuccessful, and wearily retraced his way to the air bird. The scenery was beautiful. The island rose to a chain of peaks in the centre, and beautiful passes and wooded valleys led through the mountains to the further side. The vegetation was purely tropical. Palms, breast high, grew to the edge of the sea shore; the undergrowth showed no sign of any animal inhabitants; not a twig was broken, not a leaf trampled upon, to mark the passage of a foreign body. Alan made the return journey quickly, and soon found himself at the edge of the bush. But the “Chlorie” had gone! There were the signs of where she had rested; the mark on the sand of her wheels; an oily patch on the ground showing where her engines had been lubricated—but all sign of her had vanished. Had Waz-Y-Kjesta failed him, or had Chlorie returned? He felt in his pockets—there was a scrap of paper and a pencil. “I am going inland,” he wrote. “If you come back, search for me. Alan.” He pegged it to the ground close to where the Chlorie had been anchored, and turning his face westwards, retraced his footsteps. Time passed without his reckoning. When the nights came he lived for the day; and in the day time he dreaded the coming of the night. He reached the place where the footsteps ceased at dusk, and for the first time for days, slept through the night peacefully. His fever had abated, but he still felt curiously weak. Yet his brain was clear, and he set to work again to hunt carefully for the missing ones. Yard by yard he worked, and at last his patience was rewarded. There, on a bush low on the ground, he saw a piece of something blue that fluttered on the breeze. He stooped and picked it off the twig—it was blue silk, and with a thrill he recognized it as a piece of Chlorie’s dress. Feverishly he looked round him; alas, there was no other piece to act as a further guide. A thought came to him, and he lay flat on the ground and peered under the bush. There, a grassy avenue unfolded itself before his wondering gaze—it had been completely hidden by the dense woody undergrowth. So it was under this bush they had made their escape, and it was probably in dragging the unconscious girl through, that her dress was torn.