Stan followed, and a short time after half-a-dozen sentries were leaning upon their rifles in different places, keeping a strict watch upon the river, the direction from which danger was most likely to come; while, his part of the duties performed, the lad went to lie down on the bare boards in the office, near to where Wing was sleeping soundly. As he listened to the man’s hard breathing a feeling of envy came over him. He wished that he too could sleep and forget the danger, if only for an hour. He was completely fagged with the day’s exertions; the heat was great, and his brain was in a state of wild activity which made him feel that he had never been so wakeful before in his life.
All was very still without, and as he turned upon the hard boards it seemed that every one must have gone off to sleep at once, while he was growing more and more wakeful. Now and then he started up on one arm to listen to a strange cry that suggested the approach of the enemy; but after two or three repetitions he came to the conclusion that it must have come from some riverside bunting, heron, or crane, and he lay down again, but only to ask himself whether he might not just as well get up and join Blunt, to share the night-watch, for he was more sure than ever that it was impossible to sleep under such circumstances as these.
“Yes,” he said to himself, with a feeling of satisfaction, “I’ll do that;” and it seemed to him that he got up to go and join the manager out on the dark wharf, where he could see him standing on a pile of stones close to the river-edge, leaning upon his rifle and gazing up-stream for the first sight of the enemy who might at any moment come.
Blunt turned upon him at once in the darkness, looked down, stretched out one hand and caught him by the shoulder, to say in a sharp whisper:
“Now then, my lad, time’s up!”
Chapter Twenty Three.
“Am I going mad?”
Stan made no reply, but stared straight up at him, to feel the grasp upon his shoulder tighten, while Blunt said again: “Now then, my lad, time’s up!”