They accordingly spent the best part of an hour in this manner, by the end of which they had as many torches--of a sort--as they could conveniently carry. During this period the four men had been wandering round and round the open space in which they had so unexpectedly found themselves, seeking the most suitable material for their purpose; and when at length they were ready to make a fresh start a question arose as to the precise whereabouts of the spot at which they had entered. Each, it appeared, had his own opinion, which differed from that of the others; and when, in order to settle the question, they decided to search for their own footprints as a guide, they made the disconcerting discovery that the imprints were altogether too faint to be traceable by such comparatively inexperienced trackers as themselves. Furthermore, although before entering this open space it had appeared to them that they had been following a tolerably well-defined path, or "run," now that they came to look for such a thing it proved impossible to find anything of the kind, an experimental advance of a few yards in any given direction yielding a precisely similar impression. The final conclusion arrived at was that, having once got out of the proper track, they had not been following a path at all, but simply making their way at haphazard between the innumerable patches of underscrub. At this point Sziszkinski interposed with a remark that offered a possible solution of the difficulty. "I know not, gentlemen," he said, "whether any of you took particular notice of the appearance of that mahogany tree at the moment when we entered this enclosure; but my recollection of it is that, as we first became aware of its presence, that big lower limb extended almost at right angles to our track, pointing to our left. Carrying my memory back to that moment, I think I must have been standing here, or hereabout,"--placing himself in position to illustrate his remark--"and facing this way. And if I am correct, that,"--as he faced right about and pointed--"must be about the point at which we entered."