“If the savages were pursuing us,” I said, “we should have heard them by now.”
“Don’t be too satisfied, my dear boy,” said the doctor. “These people have a great deal of the animal in them, and when they have marked down their prey they are not likely to leave the track till the end.”
I did not like the sound of that word, “end.” It was ominous, but I held my tongue.
“As likely as not,” continued the doctor, “the enemy are creeping cautiously along within a couple of hundred yards of where we stand, and—”
“I say,” cried Jack Penny eagerly, “it’s rather cold standing about here; hadn’t we better make haste on?”
“Decidedly, Penny,” said the doctor. “Forward!”
“Yes, let’s get forward,” I said, and the doctor suddenly clapped his hand over my mouth and whispered:
“Hush! Look there!”
“I can’t see anything,” I said, after a long gaze in the direction by which we had come.
“Can you see just dimly, close to where that big star makes the blur in the water, a light-coloured stone?”