There was no stopping Jimmy's snoring. Pokes and kicks only intensified
the noise, so at last we let him lie and I went on in a doleful key to
the end.
"Oh, it ain't so very bad after all!" said Jack Penny, in his slow
drawl. "I call it a good night's work."
"Good, Jack?"
"Yes. Well, ain't it?" he drawled. "Why, you've got back safe, and you
don't know that the doctor won't get back, and you've done what you came
to do--you've found your father."
"But--but suppose, Jack Penny," I said, "they--they do him some injury
for what has passed."
"'Tain't likely," drawled Jack. "They've kept him all this time, why
should they want to--well, kill him--that's what you're afraid of now?"
"Yes," I said sadly.
"Gammon! 'tain't likely. If you'd got an old kangaroo in a big cage,
and the young kangaroo came and tried to get him away you wouldn't go
and kill the old kangaroo for it?"
"No, no," I said.
"Of course not. I didn't mean to call your father an old kangaroo, Joe
Carstairs. I only meant it to be an instance like. I say, do kick that
fellow for snoring so."
"It is of no use to kick him, poor fellow, and, besides, he's tired.
He's a good fellow, Jack."
"Yes, I suppose he is," said Jack Penny; "but he's awfully black."
"Well, he can't help that."
"And he shines so!" continued Jack in tones of disgust. "I never saw a
black fellow with such a shiny skin. I say, though, didn't you feel in
a stew, Joe Carstairs, when you thought it was a black fellow lugging
you off?"
"I did," I said; "and when afterwards--hist! is that anything?"
We gazed through the bushes at the darkness outside, and listened
intently, but there was no sound save Jimmy's heavy breathing, and I
went on:
"When afterwards I found it was the black I turned queer and giddy.
Perhaps it was the effect of the blow I got, but I certainly felt as if
I should faint. I didn't know I was so girlish."
Jack Penny did not speak for a few minutes, and I sat thinking bitterly
of my weakness as I stroked Gyp's head, the faithful beast having curled
up between us and laid his head upon my lap. I seemed to have been so
cowardly, and, weary and dejected as I was, I wished that I had grown to
be a man, with a man's strength and indifference to danger.
"Oh, I don't know," said Jack Penny suddenly.
"Don't know what?" I said sharply, as he startled me out of my thinking
fit.
"Oh! about being girlish and--and--and, well, cowardly, I suppose you
mean."
"Yes, cowardly," I said bitterly. "I thought I should be so brave, and
that when I had found where my father was I should fight and bring him
away from among the savages."
"Ah! yes," said Jack Penny dryly, "that's your sort! That's like what
you read in books and papers about boys of fifteen, and sixteen, and
seventeen. They're wonderful chaps, who take young women in their arms
and then jump on horseback with 'em and gallop off at full speed. Some
of 'em have steel coats like lobsters on, and heavy helmets, and that
makes it all the easier. I've read about some of them chaps who wielded
their swords--they never swing 'em about and chop and stab with 'em, but
wield 'em, and they kill three or four men every day and think nothing
of it. I used to swallow all that stuff, but I'm not such a guffin
now."
There was a pause here, while Jack Penny seemed to be thinking.
"Why, some of these chaps swim across rivers with a man under their arm,
and if they're on horseback they sing out a battle-cry and charge into a
whole army, and everybody's afraid of 'em. I say, ain't it jolly
nonsense Joe Carstairs?"
"I suppose it is," I said sadly, for I had believed in some of these
heroes too.
"I don't believe the boy ever lived who didn't feel in an awful stew
when he was in danger. Why, men do at first before they get used to it.
There was a chap came to our place last year and did some shepherding
for father for about six months. He'd been a soldier out in the Crimean
war and got wounded twice in the arm and in the leg, big wounds too. He
told me that when they got the order to advance, him and his mates, they
were all of a tremble, and the officers looked as pale as could be, some
of 'em; but every man tramped forward steady enough, and it wasn't till
they began to see their mates drop that the want to fight began to come.
They felt savage, he says, then, and as soon as they were in the thick
of it, there wasn't a single man felt afraid."
We sat in silence for a few minutes, and then he went on again:
"If men feel afraid sometimes I don't see why boys shouldn't; and as to
those chaps who go about in books killing men by the dozen, and never
feeling to mind it a bit, I think it's all gammon."
"Hist! Jack Penny, what's that?" I whispered.
There was a faint crashing noise out in the forest just then, and I knew
from the sound close by me that the black who was sharing our watch must
have been lifting his spear.
I picked up my gun, and I knew that Jack had taken up his and thrown
himself softly into a kneeling position, as we both strove to pierce the
darkness and catch sight of what was perhaps a coming enemy.
As we watched, it seemed as if the foliage of the trees high up had
suddenly come into view. There was a grey look in the sky, and for the
moment I thought I could plainly make out the outline of the bushes on
the opposite side of the gully.
Then I thought I was mistaken, and then again it seemed as if I could
distinctly see the outline of a bush.
A minute later, and with our hearts beating loudly, we heard the
rustling go on, and soon after we could see that the bushes were being
moved.
"It is the doctor," I thought; but the idea was false, I knew, for if it
had been he his way would have been down into the stream, which he would
have crossed, while, whoever this was seemed to be undecided and to be
gazing about intently as if in search of something.
When we first caught a glimpse of the moving figure it was fifty yards
away. Then it came to within forty, went off again, and all the time
the day was rapidly breaking. The tree tops were plainly to be seen,
and here and there one of the great masses of foliage stood out quite
clearly.
Just then the black, who had crept close to my side, pointed out the
figure on the opposite bank, now dimly-seen in the transparent dawn.
It was that of an Indian who had stopped exactly opposite the clump of
bushes which acted as a screen to our place of refuge, and stooping down
he was evidently trying to make out the mouth of the cave.
He saw it apparently, for he uttered a cry of satisfaction, and leaping
from the place of observation he stepped rapidly down the slope.
"He has found us out," I whispered.
"But he mustn't come all the same," said Jack Penny, and as he spoke I
saw that he was taking aim.
"Don't shoot," I cried, striking at his gun; but I was too late, for as
I bent towards him he drew the trigger, there was a flash, a puff of
smoke, a sharp report that echoed from the mouth of the cave, and then
with a horrible dread upon me I sprang up and made for the entrance,
followed by Jack and the blacks.
It took us but a minute to get down into the stream bed and then to
climb up amongst the bushes to where we had seen the savage, and neither
of us now gave a thought of there being danger from his companions.
What spirit moved Jack Penny I cannot tell. That which moved me was an
eager desire to know whether a horrible suspicion was likely to be true,
and to gain the knowledge I proceeded on first till I reached the spot
where the man had fallen.
It was a desperate venture, for he might have struck at me, wounded
merely, with war-club or spear; but I did not think of that: I wanted to
solve the horrible doubt, and I had just caught sight of the fallen
figure lying prone upon its face when Jimmy uttered a warning cry, and
we all had to stoop down amongst the bushes, for it seemed as if the
savage's companions were coming to his help.