The first thing to be done, however, was to get a definite idea of whereabouts they were; it was obviously useless to continue plodding on, they knew not whither; besides, it was frightfully fatiguing and painful work, this marching through the forest, and George felt that it would be a positive advantage even to deviate somewhat from their direct course, if by so doing they could earlier gain the open ground once more. So, looking around him, he picked out the most lofty tree he could find, and, leaving Tom to keep watch by Walford's side, nimbly scrambled up its trunk, and was soon among its topmost branches. A single glance around sufficed to show him that his suspicions were correct; they were only about half a mile from the _northern_ edge of the timber; and, consequently, rather worse off than if they had never left the wrecked waggon at all. And, worse still, George found that, after all their travelling, they were little more than three miles from the estate, the whole of which was distinctly visible from his lofty stand-point. This was rather discouraging, but there was no help for it; he now knew exactly where they were, and how much greater than even he had imagined was the necessity for immediate action; so he turned his glances in a southerly direction, and sought to discover the most direct road out of their unpleasant predicament. Here he met with an ample reward for his trouble in climbing the tree, for he saw that, if they pursued their way due south--as they could now do, directing their course by the moon--they would have to travel through at least seven miles of forest; whilst by heading in a south-westerly direction, keeping the moon a little on their left hand, they would only have to traverse some two miles of forest, after which there seemed to be tolerably open ground as far as the eye could reach. About three miles East-South-East of him he detected the gleaming white walls of a number of buildings, which he judged to be a portion of the town of Santiago; beyond it rose a curiously-shaped, double-coned mountain; away on his right lay the table-land of Mariel; and--joyous sight--through a break in the rising ground to the southward he caught a glimpse of the sea, with, far away on the utmost verge of the horizon, an appearance of land, which he conjectured must be the Isle of Pines. Noting all these matters carefully, and making a rough mental sketch of "the lay of the land," George rapidly descended to where he had left Tom and Walford, and rapidly detailed to the former the result of his observations. "We must be off at once," he explained, "for we have no time to spare; we have lost nearly three good hours blundering about here blindly in this wood; it must be now nearly or quite midnight; and, if so, it leaves us only ten hours at most to reach the sea, if we are to do so without being overtaken."