“Ah, do; there’s a good chap. But don’t keep on in that aggravating way, saying you oughtn’t to have gone to sleep. I wanted you to go to sleep; and it wasn’t a dream about her coming and looking at me while I was asleep. I dessay my eyes were shut, but I felt somebody come, and it only aggravates me for you to say nobody did.”
“Then I won’t say it any more, Punch,” cried Pen as he hurried out of the door. “But you dreamt it, all the same,” he continued to himself as he hurried along the track in the direction of the fall, keeping a sharp lookout the while, partly in search of danger, partly in the faint hope that he might catch sight of their late compassionate visitor, who might be on the way bearing a fresh addition to their scanty store.
But he encountered no sign of either friend or enemy. One minute he was making his way amongst the gnarled cork-trees, the next he passed out to where the soft, deep, lulling, musical sound of the fall burst upon his ears; and soon after he was upon his knees drinking deeply of the fresh, cool water, before rinsing out and carefully filling the wooden seau, which he was in the act of raising from the pool when he started, for there was a movement amongst the bushes upon the steep slope on the other side of the falls.
Pen’s heart beat heavily, for, fugitive as he was, the rustling leaves suggested an enemy bent upon taking aim at him or trapping him as a prisoner.
He turned to make his way back to the hut, and then as the water splashed from the little wooden pail, he paused.
“What a coward I am!” he muttered, and, sheltering himself among the trees, he began to thread his way between them towards where he could pass among the rocks that filled the bed of the stream below the falls so as to reach the other side and make sure of the cause of the movement amidst the low growth.
“I dare say it was only goats,” he said. “Time enough to run when I see a Frenchman; but I wish I had brought my piece.”
Keeping a sharp lookout for danger, he reached the other side of the little river, and then climbed up the rocky bank, gained the top in safety, and once more started violently, for he came suddenly upon a goat which was browsing amongst the bushes and sprang out in alarm.
“Yes, I am a coward!” muttered the lad with a forced laugh; and, stepping back directly, he lowered himself down the bank, recrossed the stream, filled the little pail, and made his way to where his wounded companion was waiting for him impatiently.
“Oh, I say, you have been a time!” grumbled the boy, “and I am so thirsty.”