“Please God,” he said at last, “day will bring us help and counsel, my lad, and perhaps give prospects of finding poor Joe.”
He ceased speaking, and directly after Rob knew by his regular breathing that he too was asleep. But that greatest blessing would not come to the boy, and he lay gazing now at the dancing flames, now trying to pierce the darkness beyond, and ever and again seeing dangers in the apparently moving shadows cast by the fire.
There were the noises, too, in the forest and along the river bank, sounding more appalling than ever, and as he listened and tried to picture the various creatures that howled, shrieked, and uttered those curious cries, he fully expected to hear that peculiar terror-inspiring sound which had puzzled even Shaddy, the old traveller and sojourner in the forest wilds.
The horrible cry did not come, but as Rob lay there, too weary to sleep, too much agitated by the events of the day to grow calm and fit for rest, that sound always seemed to the lad as if it were about to break out close to where he lay, and the fancy made his breath come short and thick, till the remembrance of his boy-comrade once more filled his mind, and he lay trying to think out some way by which it was possible that Joe had escaped that day. These thoughts stayed in his mind as the fire died out from before his heavy eyes, and at last, in spite of all, he too slept heavily, and dreamed of the young Italian coming to him holding out his hand frankly and then in foreign fashion leaning toward him and kissing him on the cheek.
At the touch Rob leaped back into wakefulness, rose to his elbow, and looked sharply round, perfectly convinced that his cheek had been touched, and that, though in his sleep, he had felt warm breath across his face.
But there was nothing to see save the blazing fire, whose snapping and crackling mingled with the croaking, hissing, and strange cries from the forest. Fire-flies glided here and there, and scintillated about the bushes; Brazier and Shaddy both slept hard; and the peculiar cry of a jaguar or other cat-like animal came softly from somewhere at a distance.
“Fancy!” said Rob softly as he sank down, thinking of Shaddy’s last words that night. The troubles of the day died away, and he dropped off fast asleep again, to begin once more dreaming of Joe, and that they were together in the cabin of the boat side by side.
And it all seemed so real, that dream; he could feel the warmth from the young Italian’s body in the narrow space, and it appeared to him that Joe moved uneasily when there was a louder cry than usual in the forest and crept closer to him for protection, even going so far as to lay an arm across his chest, inconveniencing him and feeling hot and heavy, but he refrained from stirring, for fear of waking him up.
Then the dream passed away, and he was awake, wondering whether he really was in the cabin again, with Joe beside him. No; he was lying on the boughs beside the fire, but so real had that dream seemed that the fancy was on him still that he could feel the warmth of Joe’s body and the boy’s arm across his chest.
“And it was all a dream,” thought Rob, with the bitter tears rising to his eyes, as he gazed upward at the trees, “a dream—a dream!”