He lay stretched out on his chest, slowly moving the glass so that he could sweep the edge of the plain; but the time went on, and the mounted party might, after all, have been a cloud-shadow for all the sign that he could see, and at last he began to grow weary and think of whistling to Ned to come up to him.
“He ought to have been back again by now.”
The words had hardly been muttered before Chris started, for a hand was laid upon his leg.
“See ’em?”
“No. I was just going to whistle. How’s your eye?”
“Getting all right again now. But you ought to be able to see the enemy. Have you looked well?”
For answer Chris began to shuffle himself back, moving on hands and toes till he was level with Ned.
“Looked well? Of course. Here, you catch hold and have a good look yourself.—Ah! Don’t you say another word about that eye, or we shall fall out. I know: you’ve bathed it well, and it’s ever so much better. Catch hold, I say.”
Ned took the glass without a word and crept up to the stone which had sheltered the observer, and there was silence for a few minutes, during which Chris’s patience became exhausted.
Then he cried—