“Well, for the matter o’ that, I daresay I can get enough o’ them big leaves, nice dry uns, to make you a bed, Mr Mark, sir, and I will. But hadn’t we better try somewheres else?”
“There will not be time, man,” cried Mark angrily.
“All right, Mr Mark, sir! but don’t you blame me if anything happens.”
“No. Come along, and let’s be thankful for finding such a shelter. We may as well get as many leaves as we can.”
They found time to collect three loads of large dry palm leaves, and as they carried the last armful into the rocky hole, the night was quite closed in, and the crescent moon shone over the trees and silvered their tops faintly, while a soft wind whispered among them and reached the nostrils of the occupants of the cave, bearing with it the peculiar salt strange odour of the sea.
“Say,” said Billy, as they sat upon their heaps of palm leaves gazing out of the mouth of their resting-place, “think of our being ’bliged to stop in a hole like this when you can smell the sea.”
“Not a bad place,” said Mark; “and I wouldn’t mind if I could feel sure that my father and mother were not in trouble about me.”
“My father and mother wouldn’t trouble about me,” said Billy, “even if they know’d. But do you really think it was birds as made those noises, Mr Mark, sir?”
“I feel sure it was.”
“I wish we was birds just now. How we could fly right over the wood and get back to the camp! Wonder what’s for supper?”