As he crept along it was with a strange quivering of the muscles of his back and loins, a curious kind of shrinking, in expectation moment by moment of the blacks having crept round the end of the water-pool through the dry bed of the river up the side to send a spear flying into him.
But it did not come; and at last, perspiring profusely, he passed a detached bush, curved round so as to place it between him and the blacks, and then paused to glance back.
He could not see them; but, to his horror, he found that the bush was not in a line between him and the water-hole, and he had to creep back.
Worse still, he realised now how the ground sloped upward, so that at any moment he might be in full view, and he paused, hesitating about going any farther, when only a few yards beyond he saw that there was a hollow into which he could roll, and in it creep along to the first big trees.
Nic felt that he was risking being seen by his impetuosity, but excitement urged him on, and the next moment he was in the little depression, most probably a dry rivulet bed, which ran down toward the water-hole. But whatever it was it gave him shelter till he could reach the big trees, in and out of whose trunks he threaded his way, well out of sight now, and ran panting up to the fire as his father was angrily saying to Leather:
“Surely you must have seen the black last night.”
“Not him, sir,” said Brookes; “he won’t see nothing that he don’t want. I left ’em together, and he ought to know where he is.”
“Well, he has gone,” said the doctor sternly; “and hullo, Nic, have you seen a snake?”
“Quick! father, the guns!” panted the boy. “Blacks! the blacks!”
“You mean our blackfellow?”