“Round your waist?” cried Cyril. “You can’t wear seeds round your waist.”
John Manning chuckled once more.
“Can, if you put ’em in an old stocking first, sir,” he said. “But look here, young gents, as I’m so much more lucky than you are, and know better where to go for ’em, you’d better take part o’ mine, and leave me free to fill up again.”
“Yes, that will be best,” assented Perry. “I can take a lot in my pockets.”
“Any one looking, sir?”
“Very likely; but I shall take no notice. They won’t know what we’re changing from one pocket to the other, so let them watch.”
“All right, sir; then here goes,” said the old soldier, thrusting a hand deep down into his trousers pocket, and drawing out a quantity of seed. “Here you are, sir; and I’d make believe to eat a bit in case any one is watching.”
But as they were seated out of the sun, in the shade of the rough hut that had originally been put up for drying the kina bark, they were pretty well hidden from watchers, and able to carry on the transfer in comparative secrecy.
“But this isn’t seed of the cinchona tree,” cried Cyril excitedly.
“What!” said the old soldier sharply, and as if startled. Then altering his tone to one of easy confidence, with a dash of the supercilious. “Don’t you talk about what you can’t understand, sir. These here are what the colonel showed me, and told me to pick for him.”