Mark Tidd was there to help me climb out, and so was Motu.
“Guess we’ll have to get a m-m-medal struck off for him, won’t we, Motu?” says Mark.
“He shall have a thing better than many medals,” says Motu. “I am glad I saw it. I will make it into a song myself. ‘The Leap of Tallow Martin’ it shall be called.”
“Aw, shucks!” says I, but all the same I was just a bit pleased with myself.
Mark saw that like he sees everything, and calculated it was his duty to take me down a peg.
“There wasn’t the r-r-risk you figure, Motu,” says he. “He’d have landed on his h-head, you know, and that wouldn’t have hurt him.”
CHAPTER XIV
Our supper was a little late that night, but it tasted all the better for that. Before we ate, Mark insisted on our building the two watch-fires, and somebody was keeping his eyes on the enemy’s country every minute.
When it gets dark at Lake Ravona it doesn’t just fool around with it; it gets right down to business and turns out first-quality darkness. There wasn’t any moon, but there were seven million stars, which only made it seem blacker than it was. Outside the circle where our fires threw light you couldn’t see any more than as if you were trying to look through a black curtain.
Motu and Plunk drew the watch for the first part of the night, and Mark and I went up to the second floor of the citadel to sleep. Before we turned in we stepped out on the roof of the porch to look around. Below we could see the fires blazing, and a dark figure standing by each of them. Plunk was by the one in front of the citadel, and Motu was near the other.