“Never mind the risk, Brace,” I cried excitedly. “Pray, pray, let me be in it.”
“Very well,” he said—and my heart leaped. “You shall go; but follow my orders to the smallest point, and don’t let your excitement get the better of you.”
“No; I’ll be calm,” I said.
“Then there is no time to lose; they will be out soon, this cool pleasant morning.”
He took a few steps to one side, and gave the order to the men to fall in.
The men saw that something was on the way, and sprang to their places, when Brace ordered the three horses to be saddled and bridled.
This was quickly done, and by that time, and while they were being tethered to the nearest trees, the men had buckled on their belts, and taken the carbines from their rustic stand among the undergrowth.
Then there was a dead silence, and Brace signed to me, and then marched off Haynes towards the edge of the forest, while I followed.
When we got to the border, and stood by the plain with the rajah’s town on our right, and the level extending to the left, till the forest swept round about a mile away, Brace pointed out a spot in the curve of verdure, where some half-dozen large trees towered up.
“You see those, Haynes?” said Brace.