“Yes,” said Mark, “and I daresay he’s right; but I was thinking of what happened during that horrible fight in the darkness.”
“Ah–h–h!” sighed Dean softly; and no more was said.
Later on the blacks brought their prisoners half cooked food from their fire, which was scarcely touched, and water from the spring by which they were camped for the night; and of this they drank with avidity.
Then came the soft darkness, with the light of the great stars seeming to the boys to gaze pityingly down upon them; and then as the eager chattering of their captors ceased, the great silence of the forest fell upon them, bringing with it the sweet reward of the utterly wearied out.
Twice over in the night Mark, however, awoke with a start, the first time to listen to the deep barking roar of a lion which approached the prisoner, but without bringing any sense of dread.
It was a familiar sound to him, that was all; and as at intervals it came nearer and nearer and the thought occurred to the boy that the savage beast might be waiting to make a spring, it did not trouble him in the least. The position was curious, that was all; and the last time he heard the beast’s roar Mark found himself wondering what it would feel like to be suddenly snatched away, and he was still wondering, when all grew utterly still and lonely and then he started, knowing he had been asleep, but quite convinced that something had crawled close up to him and had lightly drawn its paw across his breast.
“The lion!” he thought, and then he remembered having read about those who had been seized by one of these great beasts having felt mentally stunned and so helpless and free from fear and pain that they had made no attempt to escape, and thinking that this was exactly his case, he lay trying to pierce the darkness so as to make out the shape of the fierce beast whose jaws might at any moment close upon his arm.
Just then one of the blacks sprang up, to utter a yawn and shake himself, while from close behind Mark’s head something leaped away, making bound after bound.
Silence again as Mark lay listening to the one of their captors who had sprung up, and who now uttered a long-drawn yawn and lay down again.
It must have been quite half an hour after that Mark, though he had heard nothing approach, felt the touch of his late visitor’s paw laid heavily upon his breast, and as if fascinated the boy lay without moving, until the paw—no, it was a hand—a small hand—was laid across his mouth, and directly after a pair of lips, quite warm, rested upon his right ear, and the word “Baas” was breathed therein.