"No; I shall creep forward at once. We'll all go, for if we were to divide we might never find one another. Wasn't there a moon when we started?"
Sam took his young master by the sleeve and pulled his arm towards the right, to a spot where the trees gave back from one another, and a long ghostly stream of pure white light broke in from above and bathed the tree trunks.
"What dat say?" he asked. "Yo can see fo' yoself dat dere's a moon; but down here dark as a ditch, black as de hat. Out in de open splendid light; see to read if yo like to."
"Then we may be able to see them. Lead along, Sam; clear the ground before you as much as you can."
They set forward again, this time on hands and knees, and slowly, inch by inch, approached the clearing where Jaime had made his camp. Not that they could see it yet; but Sam proclaimed the fact that they were nearer with his usual assurance.
"Tell dat by the sniff ob de hosses," he said shortly; "anyone can say dat fo' sure. In ten minute yo see dese scum, and den know what to do."
True enough, that number of minutes brought the whole party to the edge of the jungle, though as to their knowing how to act, that was a very different matter. Jim stared out into the open, and saw there five figures, huddled within a few feet of one another, wrapped from head to foot in blankets. Farther away were the horses, half-hidden in the shadow cast by the far edge of the jungle, while to one side was a pile of bags and kit, amongst which were the saddles. And little by little, as the scene unfolded itself to our hero, and from gazing at the whole he was able to concentrate his attention on each individual item, he was able to decide which of the five figures was that of his sister.
"She lies to this side of what has been a fire," he told himself, "while those rascals are on the far side. That is in our favour at any rate; but to reach her will be a bother. How's it to be done?"
Once more his eyes passed round the clearing. They went from the figure of Sadie to those of the band of ruffians, and from the latter to their saddles and other possessions. Then they passed to the horses, and so round the edge of the clearing till he found himself leaning far out from the undergrowth and staring into the faces of his own followers. There was Sam's, his eyes twinkling as ever in the moonlight, every feature denoting eagerness, while the broad line across the forehead, and beneath the tattered peak of his dirty cap, seemed to show that he, too, was puzzling his brains as to how to act. And there was Ching's Oriental countenance next to Sam's, the slant-like eyes gazing upon the scene as if it were one of the most ordinary, as if he could see nothing before him to arouse unusual interest, nothing to disturb his accustomed equanimity. The man was actually toying with the end of his pigtail, as if he could find nothing better to do. But who could really read those features? Not Jim, nor Sam, nor Tom; not even a European accustomed to China and its natives. The face was inscrutable; those blank, immobile features hid a mind which, for all its seeming somnolence, was working fiercely, relentlessly, and shrewdly to provide a solution for this difficulty. For Ching was possessed of a doglike faithfulness; he would gladly have given his life for that of "the missie" or for that of his master. And Tom—what did his expression show? The thick lips were moving as Jim looked, while the alæ of his wide nostrils were dilated widely, pulsating as if with excitement. The usually merry, childish face was set with an expression so severe that our hero was astonished. It brought a gulp to his throat as he suddenly realized to the full what he had known now for so long, that these three men were such true comrades. Then back went his eyes to the figure of his sister.
"I'll risk it," he whispered to himself. "I'll creep out there and bring her back with me. But supposing they awake, supposing Jaime or one of the others suddenly sits up and lets drive with a shooter?"