and let him have it. He dropped, and I ran forward to finish him
with the long thin knife, which one of the men had given me; but
just as I reached him, he staggered to his feet and ran on for
another two hundred yards--when I dropped him again. Once more
was this repeated before I was able to reach him and cut his
throat; then I looked around for my companions, as I wanted them
to come and carry the meat home; but I could see nothing of them.
I called a few times and waited, but there was no response and no
one came. At last I became disgusted, and cutting off all the
meat that I could conveniently carry, I set off in the direction
of the cliffs. I must have gone about a mile before the truth
dawn upon me--I was lost, hopelessly lost.

The entire sky was still completely blotted out by dense clouds;
nor was there any landmark visible by which I might have taken
my bearings. I went on in the direction I thought was south but
which I now imagine must have been about due north, without
detecting a single familiar object. In a dense wood I suddenly
stumbled upon a thing which at first filled me with hope and later
with the most utter despair and dejection. It was a little mound
of new-turned earth sprinkled with flowers long since withered,
and at one end was a flat slab of sandstone stuck in the ground.
It was a grave, and it meant for me that I had at last stumbled
into a country inhabited by human beings. I would find them;
they would direct me to the cliffs; perhaps they would accompany
me and take us back with them to their abodes--to the abodes of
men and women like ourselves. My hopes and my imagination ran
riot in the few yards I had to cover to reach that lonely grave
and stoop that I might read the rude characters scratched upon
the simple headstone. This is what I read: