Then he thought he would wait a little longer before waking his comrade and telling him that he was going back to the old hiding-place to say where they were.
Murray had just come to the conclusion that he ought to be content with the rest he had snatched, when there was a faint rustling sound just beyond the doorway where he had seated himself, and like a flash he recalled the scene in the planter’s cottage where Tom May had shrunk from going up into the chamber behind the screen on account of the snakes—poisonous or not. This was a thatched cottage place, up whose angles or sides one of the reptiles that had lurked among the bananas and maize of the plantation could easily have made its way to the roof, ready to descend upon any one sleeping on the floor.
So suggestive was this thought that the midshipman felt startled and drew himself up slightly, feeling that he ought to go to his companion’s assistance.
“Perhaps poisonous,” he thought, “and I may get a bite if I disturb it in the darkness. Perhaps, too, it may be tired out as I am, and drop asleep without molesting either me or Roberts. He’s not sleeping so heavily now,” he thought, “and I ought to be off trying to find poor worn-out and hungry Titely. I wonder how far he has wandered away from where he was left. I ought to have found him, but it wasn’t to be helped. Tom will know now. I wonder how long it will take me to get to where we left the poor fellow? But is that Dick Roberts breathing hard—snoring—or is it one of those snakes creeping about in the maize-leaf thatch? I wonder what I had better do! Of course I can’t leave poor Dick, but it’s a pity that he should make all that noise. It is like trying to betray himself.
“I think I must go and wake the poor fellow. It isn’t fair to leave him, of course. And it isn’t fair to leave poor Tom May lying done up and faint for want of water. It’s rather hard, though, when I’m so done up too;” and then he thought how beautiful it was with the soft yellow moonlight of the tropical night shining through the Indian corn leaves down through the roof of the flimsy hut, on to the floor close by where Dick Roberts was sleeping so heavily.
But no, he was not sleeping so deeply now, for he was not snoring.
And then there was the snake, or snakes, that had been rustling about so heavily. It or they were quite silent now. They had not bitten the midshipman, for of course he would have shrieked out in pain or fear. So perhaps the reptiles had crept right away, and it was quite time that he, Frank Murray, started upon his quest to find Tom May and Bill Titely. He ought in fact to have gone before, but he was so wearied-out that he felt obliged to rest for a few minutes; and now the moon was shining so brightly that it would be much better and easier to make a start through the forest lit-up by the soft yellow rays of the tropic night.
“Yes,” he muttered to himself; “it will be much better. What a beautiful night!”
And then he sat up; and again another moment and he had crawled out of the hut doorway with his eyes widely open from wonder.
“Why, it isn’t the moon, nor night!” he exclaimed, half aloud. “It’s morning, with the sun glowing through the shades of the forest, and I must have been asleep for hours.—Or else,” faltered Murray, after a pause, “I’m off my head with fever, and don’t know what I’m about.”