All at once, as Ingleborough was going to draw his companion’s attention to this fact, he felt a hand steal along his arm to grip his hand. Then it was withdrawn, a very faint rustling followed, and the listener felt that he was alone.
“Good luck go with him!” he muttered. “I wonder whether he’ll succeed?”
Leaning a little forward, he seemed to strain his ears to listen, though he felt that this was absurd, till all at once it struck him that he heard the soft sound of stealthy steps approaching from the other end of the wagon, and, creeping towards the sounds, he felt more than heard two men approaching, and as he got his head over the wagon-box he heard a whisper.
“Anson and the sentry!” he said to himself. “The spy, come to find out whether we’re safe. Yes, that was Anson’s whisper! Then we’re done if he brings a lantern and finds me alone.”
He paused for a moment or two, asking himself what he should do; and then the idea came.
Subsiding into a reclining position, he suddenly gave his thigh a sharp slap and started as if the blow had roused him up.
“Don’t go to sleep, stupid!” he said aloud. “One can’t sleep all these awful long nights! Oh dear me, this is precious dull work. I wish we had a lantern and a box of dominoes! I wonder whether there is a box in the laager?”
“Bother!” he said, in a low smothered tone, with his hands covering his face. “I wish you wouldn’t! I was dreaming about old Anson and that he’d got ten thousand pounds’ worth of diamonds in a bag aboard his wagon.”
“Like enough!” continued Ingleborough, in his natural voice. “Ha, ha, ha!” he laughed. “I should like to serve the beggar out!”
“How?” he said, in the smothered sleepy voice.