“To help you, sir? Why, weren’t you firing to let us know the way out of this horrible furnace?”
“No, sir—at the blacks who were hemming us in and throwing their spears. Don’t you know the way down to the boats?”
“No, my lad,” cried the lieutenant angrily. “Tut, tut, tut! What a mess, to be sure!—Silence there! Listen.—Well,” he continued, after some minutes, during which nothing but an occasional crack from some half-burned bamboo reached their ears. “There, we must give a shout or two. I don’t know, though, Mr Murray; you said that the blacks had begun throwing their spears?”
“Yes, sir; so did you.”
“Yes, Mr Murray, and if we begin shouting all together we shall be bringing them again.”
“That’s what I thought, sir.”
“Well, what of that, sir?” cried the officer petulantly; and for the moment it seemed to the lad that his superior had caught the captain’s irritating manner. “So would any sensible person. Here, I have it! Pass the word for Mr Dempsey. The boatswain’s whistle will bring the stragglers all together.”
“But Mr Dempsey is not with us,” suggested Murray.
“Then where in the name of common sense is he, sir? He had his instructions—strict instructions to keep well in touch with the rest; and now in the emergency, just when he is wanted he is not to be found. Listen, all of you. Can you hear anything?”
There was plenty to hear, for the half-burned posts of the savage town or the fragments of the forest still kept up a petillation, and flames flashed up here and there and emitted more smoke; but no one ventured to speak.