Chapter Eleven.
“The Smoke’s Lifting.”
“Well done, Seafowl!” said the lieutenant, and the men gave a cheer which drew forth a “Silence!” from the officer.
“You’re holloaing before you’re out of the wood, my lads,” he said. “Ah, there they go again—nearer too. Those must be Mr Munday’s or Mr Dempsey’s men. Halt, and stand fast, my lads. Let’s give them a chance to join, and then we can retire together. No doubt, Mr Murray, about the direction we ought to take.”
“No, sir,” replied the midshipman, “and we are going to be quite out of our misery soon.”
“What do you mean, my lad?”
“The smoke’s lifting, sir.”
“To be sure, my lad, it is. A cool breeze too—no—yes, that’s from the same direction as the Seafowl’s recall shot. If it had been from the forest we might have been stifled, after all.”
The signals given from time to time resulted in those who had fired coming before long within hail, and the men who now joined proved to be a conjunction of the second lieutenant’s and boatswain’s, who had met after a long estrangement in the smoke, and without the loss of a man. Then, as the smoke was borne back by the now increasing sea breeze, the general retreat became less painful. They could breathe more freely, and see their way through the burned forest in the direction of the anchored sloop.
It was a terribly blackened and parched-up party, though, that struggled on over the still smoking and painfully heated earth. For they had no option, no choice of path. The forest that lay to left and right was too dense to be attempted. There were doubtless paths known to the natives, but they were invisible to the retreating force, which had to keep on its weary way over the widely stretching fire-devastated tract that but a few hours before had been for the most part mangrove thicket interspersed with palms. But the men trudged on with all the steady, stubborn determination of the British sailor, cheered now as they were by the sight of the great river right ahead, with the sloop of war well in view; and in place of bemoaning their fate or heeding their sufferings the scorched and hair-singed men were full of jocular remarks about each other’s state.