Four of the men were named
Crow, Sparrow, Fox, and Macnamara; of the other three two were
Englishmen, Smith and Brown; the third, a native of London, named
Spiller, installed himself in the office of captain on account of his
superior knowledge. He guaranteed to lead the party in a straight
line to Western Port. He said he could box the compass; he had not
one about him, but that made no difference. He would lay out their
course every morning; they had to travel westward; the sun rose in
the east, everybody knew as much as that; so all he had to do was to
turn his back to the rising sun, and march straight on to Western
Port which was situated in the west. The men agreed that Spiller's
theory was a very good one; they could not think of any objection to
it.
Each man carried his blanket and rations, his gun and ammunition.
Every morning Spiller pointed out the course to be taken and led the
way. From time to time, with a look of extreme wisdom, he took
observations of the position of the sun, and studied the direction of
his own shadow on the ground. For five days the men followed him
with great confidence, and then they found that their rations were
all consumed, and there was no sign of Western Port or any
settlement. They began to grumble, and to mistrust their captain;
they said he must have been leading them astray, otherwise they would
have seen some sign of the country being inhabited, and they formed a
plan for putting Spiller's knowledge of inland navigation to the test.
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