Dean coughed to clear his voice.
“He said it was comic that you had just made us all officers and then ended by taking it all out of the doctor’s hands and playing captain yourself.”
“Humph! Well,” grunted Sir James, “it does sound a little odd. But this was the final instructions as I was making resignation. But stop a minute. I had just made the reservation that I should interfere if I thought proper. Now I have done. Give your final orders, captain; and then if it was my case I should say, lights out and let’s all have a good rest till daylight to-morrow morning. By the way, whose turn is it to take the watch to-night, doctor?”
“Yours, Sir James, and I relieve you two hours after midnight.”
“And to-morrow night?”
“Mark first watch, Dean the second.”
“Next night?”
“Not settled yet.”
“Good; and I think it was a very excellent arrangement of yours, doctor, to begin as we did on the first night of our moving into camp.”
That night seemed all too short, and Mark could hardly believe that it was close on daylight when the doctor roused him to see the fierce-looking black, spear-armed, dimly showing by the light of the lantern the former carried, while Dean would not believe it at all, but treated it as part of a dream, and turned over, fast asleep again.