“Oh yes, we can hear,” cried Rodd. “We can do nothing else but listen. But what was it made that cry?”
“Ah! That’s one of the things I don’t know,” said the skipper, chuckling. “What should you think it was?”
“Oh, I don’t want to be laughed at again,” cried Rodd, “for making another mistake. Perhaps it’s some other kind of stork.”
“Nay, you don’t think it is,” said the skipper. “You think different to that. Come, have a guess.”
“Well,” said Rodd, “I should say it was some kind of great cat.”
“Right, my lad; not much doubt about that. I don’t know what sort it is, but it’s one of them spotted gentlemen. I should say there’d be plenty of them here. Well, I have had about enough of it for to-day. I am just going to see about the watch, and to say a few words below to your father about having a good look-out kept, and then it won’t be very long before I turn in to my cot, for I am tired. This has been a rather anxious day.”
“You are going to speak to my father about having a good look-out kept?”
“Well, yes, my lad, and with our men well-armed. I don’t say as it’s likely, and we are too near the sea for any villages of blacks; but it wouldn’t be very nice to have two or three big canoes come and make fast to us in the night, and find the decks swarming with niggers who might think that we were made on purpose for them to kill.”
“Why, you don’t think that’s likely, do you?” cried Rodd.
“Not at all, my lad. But safe bind, safe find. What I have always found is this—that when you keep a very strict look-out nothing happens, and when you don’t something does. Are you lads coming down?”