“Yes,” faltered the boy. “It was very horrid. That bird.”
“It was startling, my lad, but you ought to be able to walk boldly across a place like that.”
“Ahoy! colonel!” came from the other side, as John Manning hailed them.
“What is it?” shouted back the colonel.
“Hadn’t I better go back, sir?”
“Back? No. Come over!”
John Manning took off his hat and scratched his head, looking down at the hanging bridge and then up at his master.
Just then there was a shout from Diego and some words in the Indian tongue, which resulted in the other Indian offering his hand to the colonel’s servant, who resented it directly.
“No,” he growled; “I’ll do it alone. One must be safer by one’s self;” and stretching out his arms like a tight-rope dancer, he came down cautiously, stepped on to the bridge and slowly walked across, the Indian following at a trot, as if astonished at any body finding so good a pathway difficult.
“I hope there ain’t many more o’ them spring playthings, sir,” said John Manning gruffly. “I thought Master Perry was gone.”