sometimes for hundreds of yards, without cutting any at all: and all
this Shard calculated on doing if only there was time.

The light before dawn came and it looked as if they would never do it
at all. And then dawn came and it was all done but one tree, the hard
part of the work had all been done in the night and a sort of final
rush cleared everything up except that one huge tree. And then the
cutter signalled the Arabs were moving. At dawn they had prayed, and
now they had struck their camp. Shard at once ordered all his men to
the ship except ten whom he left at the tree, they had some way to go
and the Arabs had been moving some ten minutes before they got there.
Shard took in the cutter which wasted five minutes, hoisted sail
short-handed and that took five minutes more, and slowly got under
way.

The wind was dropping still and by the time the Desperate Lark had
come to the edge of that part of the forest through which Shard had
laid his course the Arabs were no more than five knots away. He had
sailed East half a mile, which he ought to have done overnight so as
to be ready, but he could not spare time or thought or men away from
those twenty trees. Then Shard turned into the forest and the Arabs
were dead astern. They hurried when they saw the Desperate Lark enter
the forest.

"Doing ten knots," said Shard as he watched them from the deck. The
Desperate Lark was doing no more than a knot and a half for the wind
was weak under the lee of the trees. Yet all went well for a while.
The big tree had just come down some way ahead, and the ten men were
sawing bits off the trunk.