“What time do you think it is, father?”
“Well, by the feel of the night, my lad, I should say it’s about three.”
“As late as that, father? Time seems to have gone very quickly.”
“Quickly, eh? That’s proof positive, my boy, that you have had a nap or two. I have not, and I have found it slow.”
Chapter Twenty Seven.
A Junction.
The skipper moved off into the darkness, and all was wonderfully still once more in the clearing. There was the dense jungle all round, but not a sound broke the silence, for it was the peculiar period between the going to rest of the myriad creatures who prey by night, and the waking up of those expectant of the sun.
Then there was a sound of about the most commonplace, matter-of-fact character that can be imagined. Fitz, as he lay half upon a heap of dry leaves and canes, opened his mouth very widely, yawned portentously and loudly, ending with, “Oh, dear me!” and a quickly-uttered correction of what seemed to him like bad manners: “I beg your pardon!”