“I say,” said Jack Penny, who had crouched down beside the basin, “why, you might cook eggs in this.”
“That you might, Penny,” said the doctor.
“But we ain’t got any eggs to cook,” said Jack dolefully. “I wish we’d got some of our fowls’ eggs—the new-laid ones, you know. I don’t mean them you find in the nests. I say, it is hot,” he continued. “You might boil mutton.”
“Eh! whar a mutton? Boil mutton?” cried Jimmy, running up, for he had caught the words.
“At home, Jimmy,” I said, laughing. The black’s disgust was comical to witness as he tucked his waddy under one arm, turned his nose in the air, and stalked off amongst the rocks, in the full belief that we had been playing tricks with him.
He startled us the next moment by shouting:
“Here um come! Gun, gun, gun!”
He came rushing back to us, and, moved by his evidently real excitement, we took refuge behind a barrier of rock and waited the coming onslaught, for surely enough there below us were dark bodies moving amongst the low growth, and it was evident that whatever it was, human being or lower animals, they were coming in our direction fast.
We waited anxiously for a few minutes, during the whole of which time Jimmy was busily peering to right and left, now creeping forward for a few yards, sheltered by stones or bush, now slowly raising his head to get a glimpse of the coming danger; and so careful was he that his black rough head should not be seen, that he turned over upon his back, pushed himself along in that position, and then lay peering through the bushes over his forehead.
The moving objects were still fifty yards away, where the bush was very thick and low. Admirable cover for an advancing enemy. Their actions seemed so cautious, too, that we felt sure that we must be seen, and I was beginning to wonder whether it would not be wise to fire amongst the low scrub and scare our enemies, when Jimmy suddenly changed his tactics, making a sign to us to be still, as he crawled backwards right past us and disappeared, waddy in hand.