Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp, up and down on the regular beat, sometimes
in the full silvery moonlight, sometimes in the shade cast by the hut;
one minute only the footsteps to break the silence, or the wallowing
plash of one of the great reptiles that haunted the river-deeps.
"That's cheerful!" muttered the sentry. "Ain't so bad, though, as old
Joe made it out when he was doing his sentry-go below there, close to
the water. My word, how clear it is to-night! I should just like to
have a regular old-fashioned sentry-box down there, close to the
landing-place, with a good, strong door to it as one could fasten tight,
and loopholes in the sides, and plenty of cartridges ready for a night's
shooting. I'd let some of 'em have it! Wouldn't it make 'em savage,
though! They'd come out and turn the box over if it was not well pegged
down. Wouldn't do much good, though, if I hit every time, for lots more
of the ugly beggars would come. Mister Archie says they lay eggs.
Pretty chickens they must be when they are hatched. Hullo! what boat's
that?"
For the plashing of poles reached his ears, and the dark form of a
good-sized sampan came round a curve, with its attap awning glistening
softly like dead silver in the moonlight.
The sentry waited in the shade of the hut till the boat came nearer, and
then challenged, when a familiar voice responded:
"That you, Peter Pegg?"
"Mister Archie, sir! Yes, sir."
"It's all right. We are going up the river a little way in the
moonlight. Beautiful night!"
"Yes, sir; lovely, sir. I'd be on the lookout, sir, though."
"What for?"
"Them alligator things, sir. I have heard a good many of them knocking
about there."
"Oh, they won't come near us with the men splashing as they pole us
along."
The boat passed on, and as the sentry had a glimpse of a white face and
the folds of a veil he stood musing and watching till the boat had
passed and disappeared.
"No," he thought, "I don't suppose the brutes will go near them. They
soon scuttle off when they hear a splash. Nice to be him, enj'ying
hisself with his lady. Wonder who it is. Miss Doctor, perhaps. Nice
girl. But he's only a boy. Wish I was a officer. I used to think it
would be all the same for us when I 'listed. My word, how the Sergeant
did lay on the butter and jam! And talked about the scarlet, and being
like a gentleman out here abroad with the niggers to wait on us--and
then it comes to this! Sentry-go for hours in a lonely place like this
here, with crocklygaters hanging about to see if you go to sleep to give
them a chance to make a grab. Yes, they make a fellow feel sleepy!
Just likely, ain't it?"
Peter Pegg's thoughts seemed to animate him, and for a turn or two he
changed his pace from a slow march to double.
"Steady, my lad!" he muttered. "There ain't no hurry;" and he dropped
back into the regular pace, and began thinking about the boat and its
occupants.
"Nice young lady she is; and I suppose that there Sir Charles is going
to make a match with her, for she and Mister Archie always seem just
like brother and sister. I suppose he ain't been well. Been precious
quiet lately. Can't have offended him, for he was as jolly as could be
last time I saw him. He's getting more solid-like and growed up. But
my word, what fun we have had together sometimes! And what a row there
would have been if we had been found out! It wouldn't have done. But
it has cheered me up many a time when I have had the miserables and felt
as if I'd like to cut sojering and make for home. It was nice to have a
young officer somewheres about your own age ready for a lark. Poor old
Mother Smithers, and that brown juice--what do they call it--cutch and
gambia?--as dyes things brown. The officers' clean shirts as was washed
in that water--haw, haw, haw!--What's that?"
The listener brought his piece to the ready, and the _click, click_ of
the lock followed instantly upon a shrill cry which seemed to thrill the
sentry along every nerve.
"Is it the crocs?" he thought; and then close upon the distant sound of
blows and a splash or two came in Archie's well-known but now excited
tones:
"Sentry Pegg! Help!"
The young private obeyed his first instinct, and that was, instead of
firing, to give the alarm, to run down as fast as he could to the
water's edge and plunge in amongst the scattered, overhanging trees,
making as well as he could judge for the direction from which the cries
had arisen.
"Here! Coming! Coming!" he panted, as he rushed in where the trees
were thickest, to become, directly after, conscious of a figure starting
up from behind a bush that he had just passed, and from which,
glittering and flashing, came the sparkle of quite a little cloud of
fire-flies.
The lad swung himself round as he scented danger, and struck back with
the butt of his rifle; but it was only to miss his assailant and expose
his head to a blow from the other side--so heavy a stroke from a
formidable, club-like weapon that he dropped, with a faint groan, while
from the direction of the boat right out towards the middle of the river
there was a resumption of the plashing of poles.