Norman stepped on to the great chest, leaped down, and ran off, as a low piteous sigh—almost a sob—was heard from behind; but though it had an echo in the captain’s breast, he crouched there firm as a rock, and steeling himself against tender emotions, for the sake of all whom he had brought into peril and whom it was his duty to protect.
There before him was his eldest son, carrying his gun at the trail, and running swiftly in the direction of the black, who from running boldly from tree to tree was now seen to be growing very cautious, and suddenly to drop down and disappear.
The captain drew a long deep breath.
“We may trust him,” he said softly; “he is evidently our friend. Now for Norman’s news.”
Yet, though he was at rest on this point, he was uneasy about an attack on their right flank or rear, but that could not come from the rear, he knew, without some panic on the part of the cattle; while he was hopeful about the right flank, for the ground was precipitous in the extreme, and from what they had seen so far, it was hardly possible for any one to approach.
But though Shanter had dropped quite out of sight of those behind the little barricade, he was still visible to Norman, who ran on and was getting near to where the black was creeping from bush to bush on all fours, looking in the dim evening light like a black dog carrying his master’s stick, for Norman in one glimpse saw that he was drawing his spear as he crawled, his boomerang was stuck behind him in his waistband, and his nulla-nulla was across his mouth tightly held by his teeth.
When about some twenty yards away, and approaching in perfect silence as he thought, the black looked sharply round, rose to his knees, and signed to the boy to go down on all fours.
Norman obeyed, and Shanter waited till he had crawled up. Then making a gesture that could only mean, “Be silent and cautious,” he crawled on, with the boy following him, till, after what seemed quite a long painful piece of toil, they reached the foot of a steep rocky slope whose tree-fringed summit was some fifty feet above their heads.
Shanter pointed to the top, and began to climb, mounting easily for some distance, and then stopping by a small tree, whose gnarled roots were fixed in the crevices of the rock. Here he held on, and reached down with his spear, by whose help Norman soon climbed to his side, where he paused to sling his gun by its strap, so as to leave his bands at liberty.
The rest of the ascent was made with more ease; and when Shanter reached the top, he raised his eyes above the level with the greatest caution, and then seemed to Norman to crawl over like some huge black slug and disappear.