“This is a real old picnic now, Miss Halse,” pronounced Sub-Inspector Dering, as he helped to unpack from the spider the requisite things which had been brought along for lunch. “Lord, what a nuisance those kids are!” he added in an undertone. “Always howling.”
For Minton’s small family was uttering shrilling expostulation at the delayed meal. The while vedettes were posted, and the police, split up into groups, were discussing their rations. The officers and the civilian element were making a picnic together, and as such it seemed, but the stacked rifles and full bandoliers told a different tale.
“What d’you think, Halse?” said Inspector Bray, as the two talked apart while the others were laughing and joking and making merry as they laid out the things. “Shall we slip through, or shall we get a chance at Sapazani?”
“Can’t say. You see, I’ve been cut off from communication ever since I left home. But I should say the chances are about even. One thing you may rely upon, we have been watched every inch of the way.”
“Sure?”
“Dead cert. However, let’s fall-to, at any rate. We’ll be ready for them if they do come, and we can’t do more.”
The picnic proceeded merrily enough. Sub-Inspector Dering attached himself very attentively to Verna. He was aware of her engagement, but he was an Irishman, and therefore bound to attach himself to the best-looking woman present. Harry Stride was rather silent, hardly talking with the other prospectors, among whom he had chosen to keep himself. But when the after-lunch pipes came out, Bray, with an escort of a dozen men, started off to examine the drift for himself, and with him went Denham.
It was barely two miles off. The river, not a wide one, swirled between high, clayey banks fringed with dense bush. If attacked at the point of crossing the matter might be serious.
He was relieved. The high-water mark of the flood had left a broad, wet stripe between it and the surface. The stream was subsiding rapidly.
“In half-an-hour we shall be able to take it,” he said. “Hallo! Don’t see anything, Denham?”