“Yes, of course,” said the mate, “we mustn’t be taken by surprise. That’s the worst of being down here on so flat a place, you can’t make out whether there’s any danger.”
Hailing one of the men directly, he sent him up to the main-topgallant cross-trees with a spy-glass to carefully “sweep the offing,” as he termed it, and then as Smith brought down the guns with a very inquiring look which said dumbly but plainly enough, “You won’t leave me behind, will yer, gents?” the mate spoke out,—
“Let’s see, you have been with these gentlemen before, Smith?”
“Yes, sir, me and Billy Wriggs,” cried Smith excitedly.
“Humph. Like to have the same men again, Mr Lane, or try some fresh ones?”
“Oh, I say stick to the tools you know,” said Oliver, smiling at Smith.
“Yes, let’s have the same men again,” put in Panton.
“Hi! Wriggs,” said the mate—“down here.”
Wriggs came down smiling all over his face, and after a certain amount of scouting had been done, and the man at the cross-trees had turned his telescope in every direction in search of danger, and seen none, the little party started once more, the mate accompanying them for a few hundred yards towards the south-west.
“I’d make for the sea,” he said, “but don’t go too far.”