“The little wretch!” muttered Rob; and the lesson was sufficient. He did not feel the slightest desire to tempt the cool water more, but applied his lips to the little bite, which was bleeding freely, thinking the while that if one of those savage little fish could produce such an effect, what would be the result of an attack by a thousand.
Day was near at hand as Rob sat there, though it was still dark, and a cold mist hung over the water; but the nocturnal creatures had gone to rest, and here and there came a chirrup or long-drawn whistle to tell that the birds were beginning to stir, instinctively knowing that before long the sun would be up, sending light and heat to chase away the mists of night. Now and then, too, there was a splash or a wallowing sound, as of some great creature moving in the shallows, close up beneath where the trees overhung the water, and the boy turned his head from place to place, half in awe, half in eagerness to know what had made the sound.
But he could make out nothing that was more than twenty or thirty yards from where the boat swung to her moorings; and, turning his head more round, he sat thinking of the adventures of the previous day, and wondered where the puma might be.
“It was a stupid thing to do to run right before that gun,” he said to himself; “but I hadn’t time to think that Mr Brazier would fire, and I didn’t want the poor beast to be killed.”
Rob sat thinking of how gentle and tame the great cat-like creature seemed, and a curious sensation of sorrow came over him as he thought of it crawling away into some shelter to die in agony from the effects of the deadly wounds inflicted by Brazier’s gun.
“And if I had not tumbled down,” he said to himself, “it would have been me instead;” and now he shuddered, for the full truth of his narrow escape dawned upon him.
“It would have been horrid,” he thought; “I never felt before how near it was.”
He leaned back and looked around at the misty darkness and then up at the sky, where all at once a tiny patch began to glow and rapidly become warmer, till it was of a vivid orange.
“Morning,” said Rob half aloud; and feeling quite light-hearted at the prospect of daylight and breakfast, he sat up and looked round him at the positions, now dimly seen, of his companions, and was just thinking of rousing up the men to see to the fire, when the latter took his attention, and he turned to see if it was still glowing.
For some minutes he could not make out the exact spot where it had been made. It was in a little natural clearing about twenty yards from the bank, but the early morning was still too dark for him to make out either bank or clearing, till all at once a faint puff of air swept over the lake, and as it passed the boat, going toward the forest, there was a faint glow, as of phosphorescence, trembling in one particular spot, and he knew that it must be caused by the fanning of the embers.