“Don’t move, Mas’ Don, my lad, I’m not tired!”
But he did move, for he started up from where his head had been lying on Jem’s knees, and the poor fellow smiled at him in the broad morning sunshine. Sunshine, and not moonshine; and Don stared. “Why, Jem,” he said, “have I been asleep?”
“S’pose so, Mas’ Don. I know I have, and when I woke a bit ago, you’d got your head in my lap, and you was smiling just as if you was enjoying your bit of rest.”
Chapter Forty Two.
Tomati escapes.
“Have they been rowing—I mean paddling—all night, Jem?” said Don, as he looked back and saw the long line of canoes following the one he was in.
“S’pose so, my lad. Seems to me they can go to sleep and keep on, just as old Rumble’s mare used to doze away in the carrier’s cart, all but her legs, which used to keep on going. Them chaps, p’r’aps, goes to sleep all but their arms.”
A terrible gnawing sensation was troubling Don now, as he looked eagerly about to see that they were going swiftly along the coast line; for their captors had roused themselves with the coming of day, and sent the canoes forward at a rapid rate for about an hour, until they ran their long narrow vessels in upon the beach and landed, making their prisoners do the same, close by the mouth of a swift rocky stream, whose bright waters came tumbling down over a series of cascades.