Had they slain the captives before they had reached this spot, and had he passed them in the darkness?
He shuddered at the thought and glanced behind him as though he was almost fearful that they might be lying close beside him.
But he saw nothing.
They had disappeared, but where?
With the utmost caution he crept nearer to the fire, keeping well in the shadows of the trunks of the trees which stretched out like giants on either hand.
Hardly a dozen yards now lay between him and the nearest savage.
Suddenly a well-remembered voice broke upon his ear, dispelling all his fears at once.
“Jerusalem and the Prophets, but this is a hard one! I wish to mercy I was to hum in New Hampshire. I’m as hungry as a ba’r, and that ’ere meat smells as good as aunt Nancy’s baked beans used to, when I was a boy. Don’t you think they mean to give us a mouthful?”
The scout glanced toward a spot where the shadows fell the thickest about the fire, and there he saw the outlines of his friends’ forms, bound to the trunks of the saplings standing there.