“Don’t say nobody, for I will,” said Brace quietly. “I was only joking you a bit. But tell me: that coast-line I could see before it grew so dark was all forest, I suppose?”
“A lot of it,” replied the mate, with a sigh or relief; “great thick dense forest with dwarfish trees growing out of the mud, and if you could see now, you’d find all the leaves sparkling with fireflies up the creeks and streams.”
“Then the sooner we reach our river and begin to sail up, the better I shall like it. How soon it grows dark out here!”
“It does in these latitudes,” replied the mate.
“But I say, Mr Leigh, don’t you go thinking that I went ashore carrying on and drinking, because I didn’t.”
“I promise you I will not.”
“Thankye,” said the mate, as he stood looking along the darkened deck, with the lanthorns now swinging aloft. Beneath a rough awning the captain had made the men rig up over the cabin, that gentleman was seated chatting with Sir Humphrey, while the first mate stood by them, listening to their conversation, and occasionally putting in a word.
Three or four folding-chairs had been placed aft for the benefit of the passengers, one of which Brace had marked down for his own use, and he was thinking of fetching it along to where they stood, as he talked to the second and fastened the strap of his binocular case.
“Ah,” said the mate, “you’ll find that little glass handy when you begin shooting for picking out the birds and serpents and things, and—”
He took off his straw hat to wipe his forehead, for the air was hot, moist, and sultry. He did not, however, apply his handkerchief, but stood with it in his right hand, his straw hat in his left, gazing down at it.