The same idea came again to both: “We must strike twice.”
Then a second plan occurred to Oliver, and making a sign to Drew that he should deliver the blow, he softly laid down his gun and reached forward to seize one ankle, and suddenly drag the man back.
Drew took a fresh hold of the barrel of his piece, and raised the butt to strike, as Oliver’s hands hovered within a few inches of the man’s ankles.
“I shall have to charnsh it, that I shall!”
The two young men stood as if paralysed, and it was some moments before Oliver could whisper huskily,—
“Smith!”
The feet were snatched out of sight in an instant, there was a loud rustling, and then a face was thrust out of the bamboos above where the man’s feet had been, and just as a bellowing roar came from the mountain and the earth trembled beneath their feet.
“Why, gentlemen; you?” whispered Smith, for it was indeed he.
“Yes: we thought you were on board the lugger, and nearly killed you.”
“Then that was a narrow squeak, gentlemen. And I’ve been thinking as I was going to be baked instead. I was on my way with the guns, when I ketches sight of a drove of these here ugly black pigs, and they chevied me, but, fortunately, I’d got a good start, and run in among the trees, where, somehow or other, they couldn’t find me, and at last they give it up, and here have I been tryin’ to crawl within reach of the brig, so as to make a run for it, and get aboard.”