“Yes.”
“Oh, all right, then, I don’t mind. I’ll go off ’lone with the ladder if he likes. Where’s the Injuns now?”
“Dunno. But they ain’t Injuns, Billy; they’re savygees, that’s what they are.”
“Why, I heered Mr Oliver call ’em pap you hans. But there, I don’t care. Call ’em what you like, so long as I can get rid o’ this ladder and rest my soldier.”
“Then why don’t you put it over your other soldier, Billy, or else let me carry it?”
“’Cause I shan’t, Tommy, so there you have it, sharp.”
“You men will be heard by the Papuans if there are any lurking about,” whispered Oliver just then. “Silence, and keep close behind us.”
As the moon rose higher it was not to shine out bright and clear, for there was a thin haze floating over the sea, and consequently, as the softened silvery light flooded the wave-swept plain, every object looked distorted and mysterious. Tree-trunks, where they lay together, seemed huge masses of coral rock, swollen and strange, and the hollows scooped out by the earthquake wave appeared to be full of a luminous haze that the eye could not penetrate, and suggested the possibility of enemies being in hiding, waiting to take aim with some deadly weapon, as soon as the light grew plain enough for the returning party to be seen.
But out in the open, as far as they could make out, no lurking savages were visible, and as the light spread more and more, unless hidden by some shadowy hollow, there was no danger close at hand.
This was satisfactory and encouraging, the more so that though they all listened with every nerve on the strain, there was now not a sound to betray the enemy’s whereabouts.