“Why, I know,” cried Drew; “they’re waiting for their friends whom we saw. When they come there’ll be a general attack.”
Oliver was silent for a few moments, as he stood watching the movements of the blacks.
“That’s it,” he said at last. “Then our plan is to get to the brig at once.”
He led on now till they were as near as they could get, and as they stood in the dark shadow of the forest the question was, had the enemy sense enough to invest the vessel and plant sentries all round? If they had, the difficulties were greatly increased; and to solve this problem, Oliver made his companion wait, sheltered by a great tree, while he crept right to the edge to investigate.
“You’ll come back?” said Drew.
“I will if I am left alive,” said Oliver, quietly, and then he turned his head and was in the act of drawing out his little glass to watch the actions of a couple of sun-birds playing merrily about in a narrow sunny beam of light, but he checked himself; half-laughing the while. “Use is second nature,” he said, and, leaving his gun with Drew, he went down on hands and knees and crept cautiously along, dislodging beetles, lizards, and more natural history specimens in a few yards than he would in an ordinary way in a day.
In a few minutes he was at the extremity of and beneath a great bough, with the brilliant sunshine before him, the darkness of the forest behind. There, in front, rising above the low growth and a quarter of a mile away, was the brig, with the look-out in the top and a head showing here and there, one of which he made out by his glass to be Panton’s, while it was evident enough that they were well on the qui vive.
To Oliver’s great joy there was not a black in sight on his side, though plainly enough beyond the vessel, they were hanging about in groups and all well armed.
As he lay there, sweeping the various objects with his glass, partly for signs of danger, partly for places of shelter to which they could creep, going from one to the other till they were near enough to make a rush for the brig, he marked down quite a series. There, a short distance their side of the brig, were the heaps of wood rejected in the making of the lugger; a little nearer a shed-like construction of bamboo and palm leaves, erected to shelter the men who were adzing and planing the planks. Then, nearer still, there was a high tuft of newly-grown-up grass. Again, nearer, a hollow, once full of fish, but long since dried up, and, nearer still, a freshly-grown clump of bamboos.
“If we can crawl to that unseen, we’re all right, and we must risk it at once,” said Oliver to himself, and then his heart seemed to stand still and a horrible feeling of despair came over him, for he suddenly made out a slight movement and jerking amongst the bamboo stems, and, fixing his glass upon the spot, there, plainly enough, were the soles of a man’s feet—a scout evidently, lying extended there, watching the brig.