Chapter Twenty Eight.
Nature is Mistress.
“I haven’t slept long,” thought Cyril as he woke with a start to see the colonel seated as he had left him when sleep came. He did not appear to have moved, and all was perfectly still. One thing, however, puzzled him, and that was the light. It was soft and warm and glowing then; now it was clear and bright.
All at once he saw something come into sight from the side and stand looking in. It was the old leading mule, and it stood there munching away at a tuft of green stuff which it held in its teeth, and then dropped, and stooped its head to take a long drink of water.
“Have the Indians gone?” thought Cyril, “and has the colonel let the mules out to feed?”
He sat up for a moment or two, and then lay down again.
“I may as well sleep till I am called,” he thought, and he lay listening to the heavy breathing of John Manning and Perry, whom he could see lying in precisely the same position as when he lay down a few minutes before.
But was it a few minutes before? Cyril asked himself as he saw the mule lift its head with the water dripping from its lips, and then pick up the tuft of green twigs, and go on munching again. It could not have been longer, for the colonel had not been relieved yet; but the light was so strange. Last time he looked, the opposite side of the gorge was glowing with the sunset rays; now it was in shadow, and the sun was shining just inside the mouth of the cave, and making the water flash like molten silver.