Chapter Twenty One.
How we retreated and were caught in a Tropic Storm.
Our black companion was quite right. The enemy had indeed gone, and the time had come for us to get beyond their reach, for all at once it seemed to grow dark, and we stood farther out of our shelter, glad to free our limbs from the cramping positions in which they had been for so long.
The doctor handed to each of us some chips of dried meat, bidding us eat as we walked. The bearers were well provided, and starting at once, with Ti-hi to lead and Aroo to cover our retreat, we stepped lightly off.
Our blacks knew well enough what was required of them now as to our baggage, and every package was taken from the breastwork, shouldered or placed upon the head, and, watchful and ready to use our arms, we soon left the scene of the fight behind.
The New Guinea savage Ti-hi as we called him, that being the nearest approach I can get to his name, followed very much the course we had taken early in the day when we sought the waterfall, but left it a little to our left and struck the river some few hundred yards above, pausing for a few minutes for his men to take breath, and then pointing out the course he meant to take.
It was a perilous-looking place, enough to make anyone shiver, and there was a murmur amongst the blacks as they looked down at what seemed to be a mere shelf or ledge of rock low down near the black hurrying water of the river, which seemed to be covered with flowing specks of gold as the brilliant stars were reflected from the smooth rushing stream.
Where we were to descend the water seemed to be about thirty feet below, but the rocky side of the river bed ran sheer up quite fifty feet as far as we could make out in the darkness, and I did not wonder at the murmur we heard.