“Why, she has come in closer while we’ve been below,” he said.
“On the contrary, she has run out with the tide, and is a good two miles away. Let’s have a look round.”
The first movement was to the sentry on guard over the hatch, from which came the sounds of heavy breathing, and the man reported in a whisper that the blacks had not made another sound.
The rest of the watch were next visited, and there was nothing to report.
“There,” said the lieutenant, “all’s well. Go and sleep, my lad. I’ll keep a faithful watch over you; when your turn comes do the same for me. Good-night.”
“Good-night, sir,” said Mark, eagerly taking the hand extended to him, and gripping it firmly. Then going below, feeling weary, but unwilling to leave the deck, he crept into the skipper’s comfortable bunk to rest himself, feeling certain that he would not sleep. For it was very hot down there, in spite of the open cabin window; the mosquitoes were uttering their tiresome fine-drawn hum, and he was excited by the events of the day.
“It’s like going to sleep on the edge of a volcano,” he thought. “Suppose the blacks do rise, and, led by our two fellows, attack us. We should be taken by surprise, and it would be all over in a minute. I can’t go to sleep. I’ll lie still a bit, and then go on deck.”
Mark lay still a bit, but did not go on deck, for he dropped off into a deep sleep, which seemed only to have lasted five minutes when Mr Russell came and roughly told him to turn out, flashing the lanthorn in his eyes as he awoke, puzzled and confused at the rough way in which his fellow-officer spoke. Then with a start he grasped the reality.
It was not the lieutenant holding the light, but someone else, who growled,—“Make so much as a sound and it will be your last—all but the splash going overboard. D’yer see this? Guess you do. Mind it don’t go off.”
There was no need for guessing; the object named was plain enough in the light of the lanthorn, being a pistol barrel, whose muzzle was about two feet from the lad’s head.