“Yes.”
“Watch it for a minute.”
I fixed my eyes upon the dimly-seen rock, just where quite a blaze of stars flecked the black water with their reflections, but for a time I saw nothing. I only made my eyes ache, and a strong desire came upon me to blink them very rapidly. Then all at once the stone seemed darker for a moment, and then darker again, as if a cloud had come between the glinting stars and the earth.
It was so plain that a couple of the savages had glided by that stone that we felt it would be best to remain where we were for the present, awaiting the attack that we knew must follow.
“We are prepared now,” whispered the doctor, “and if we must fight it would be better to fight now than have to turn suddenly and meet an attack on our rear.”
The result was that we remained watching through the next painful hour, guns and bows ready for the first oncoming of the savages; but with terrible distinctness there was the washing sound of the river hissing past the rocks, and the rising and falling musical roar of the distant cascade—nothing more!
Then another hour of silence in that awful chasm passed away, with the expectation of being attacked every moment keeping our nerves upon the stretch.
How different it all seemed, what a change from the peaceful life at home! There I had led a happy boyish life, with the black for my companion; sometimes he would disappear to live amongst his tribe for a few weeks, but he always returned, and just after breakfast there would be his merry black face eagerly watching for my coming to go with him to “kedge fis” in some fresh creek or water-hole that he had discovered; to hunt out wallabies or some other of the hopping kangaroo family peculiar to the land. Jimmy had always some fresh expedition on the way, upon which we started with boy-like eagerness. But now all at once, consequent upon my determination, my course of life had been changed, and it seemed that, young as I was, all the work that fell to my hand was man’s work. Yesterday I was a boy, now I was a man.
That was my rather conceited way of looking upon matters then, and there was some ground for my assumption of manliness; but if excuse be needed let me say in my defence that I was suddenly cast into this career of dangerous adventure, and I was very young.
Some such musings as the above, mixed up with recollections of my peaceful bed-room at home, and the gentle face that bent over me to kiss me when I was half asleep, were busy in my brain, when the doctor said softly: