“Let’s go on tempting him,” said Dean, laughing; and Sir James smiled.
“We may be only frightening ourselves with shadows, doctor,” he said, “and it is quite possible that our visitors were only one or two wandering blacks.”
“I hope you are right, Sir James,” said the doctor; “but the finding of that old fellow when we first came, and the way in which he disappeared, lead me to suppose that we are not so lonely as we seem. Well, if we stay, the great thing is to keep a most stringent watch night by night, and always to be ready against surprise.”
These last words of the doctor’s decided the matter, and the rest of the day on which they were spoken was devoted to a reconnaissance made by the boys and their captain, several of the nearest kopjes being ascended and the glasses they had with them brought to bear. But nothing was seen till the last kopje was ascended prior to journeying back to the waggons, when Dean in sweeping the sides of a slope half a mile away suddenly gave the alarm.
“There they are!” he cried.
The doctor snatched out his glass, focussed it upon the indicated spot, and closed it again with a laugh.
“Yes, there they are,” he cried. “Look, Mark.”
“I am looking,” replied the boy, who was focussing the objects that had startled his cousin.
“Well, do you see them?” said the doctor.
“Yes, dozens of them, with their old women behind them carrying their babies. Oh, I say, Dean, you are a fellow! Monkeys—baboons.”