“Yes, quite, Ned.”
“Then I tell you what, Mr Jack, sir; we’ll try and hunt out a snug place somewhere close handy and have a good sleep.”
“I don’t feel sleepy, Ned. I want to get back and end my father’s terrible suspense.”
“So do I, sir; but I put it to you—can we do anything in the dark to-night?”
“No. There is only the satisfaction of trying.”
“Yes, sir; but you have to pay a lot for it. Say we try for home now—that’s all we can do,—shan’t we be less fit to-morrow?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Very well then, sir; it’s a lovely night, let’s have a good sleep. Then as soon as it’s light we’ll set to work and eat one of these sleeves of potatoes, come down here again, and take in water enough to last us for the day, or till we find some more, and try all we can to get down to the shore somehow or another. By this time to-morrow night, if I don’t find some way of showing that a white man can manage to live where a black can, my name’s not what it is.”
It was rough work searching for a resting-place, and the best they could find was upon some rough, shrubby growth, not unlike heather, in a recess among several mighty blocks of stone. But if it had been a spring bed, with the finest of linen, they could not have slept better, or awoke more refreshed, when the forest was being made melodious by the songs of birds. The mountain top was beginning to glow, and just below there came the soft tinkling splash of the falling water.
“Morning, sir,” cried Ned, springing up. “Your shower-bath’s waiting, sir. Come along, sir. Do us no end of good to have a dip. We shall take in a lot of water that way, and get rid of the dust that choked us yesterday.”