“Nonsense! No. Ugh!”
Ned started up, his action following the ejaculation belying his words, for all of a sudden from near at hand came a dull thud as if a heavy blow had been struck, followed by what sounded in Ned’s ears like a shriek of agony. “What’s that?” he gasped.
“One mule tried to bite another in the back, had a kick for his pains, and called ‘Murder!’ in mulese,” said Chris sourly. “I say, I shall have a bed-room to myself to-morrow night if you’re going on like this.”
Ned was silent, for his companion’s words rankled.
“Perhaps I ought to have known,” he said, “but it’s all so strange lying out here in the darkness.”
He turned over on the other side, determined to sleep now, and he tried hard for quite a quarter of an hour, the effort seeming to make him more wakeful than ever, for his senses were all upon the strain, while as the night progressed fresh noises, some of them quite peculiar, seemed to arise. Once he started, for there was a heavy splash which in the clear air sounded quite near, but which was evidently from the lagoon; and it put to flight an idea he had been nursing up of going down to the sheet of water and ridding himself of his hot tickling clothes so as to have a good swim before breakfast. That was all over now, for that splash told of alligators swimming in the lagoon to his heated imagination. He had never heard of the reptiles existing in that part of the country, but he knew that there were plenty in the swamps farther to the south, and there was no reason why there might not be some in the wild districts into which they were plunging.
Another splashing noise succeeded, and he felt that it might have been made by a fish, and others which succeeded have been caused by waterfowl. But all idea of bathing was dismissed.
At last, after a long hot lapse of time, during which he had given many a vicious rub to the unclothed parts of his body, and turned again, feeling as if there were far too many buttons on his clothes, which instead of confining themselves to their proper duty of holding the said garments in their places, felt as if they had become animate and were engaged in treating his flesh as if it was wax and they were seals.
“Hah!” he sighed, at last, as the sounds grew apparently more dull and distant, Chris’s breathing heavy and regular, and a feeling of restful ease began to pervade his being.
“Old Chris is fast asleep, and I’m going off at last. Oh, how tired, how sleepy I do—Ugh!”