“Looking out for squalls,” said Frank, laughingly.
In a minute Hamet was back.
“Can’t see men. All dark. No one. No speak. Keep close to Hamet.”
“Yes; we’ll follow,” said Ned, and after lowering the lamp a little by putting the wick back amongst the oil, they crept out on to the veranda, where all listened for a time and tried to pierce the darkness.
It was very quiet. Only a cry from the jungle, and a faint splash from the river; and descending quickly, Hamet took about a dozen paces at a run, and then stopped for the boys to overtake him.
“No one. No spears,” he whispered, evidently fully convinced that his sharp run would have in some way brought him in contact with the guard if they had been there.
Then, going off quickly in the direction of the jetty, he turned off when about half-way there, and led his young companions in and out among the houses, and after passing them, away along the edge of the rice-fields that skirted the village, the boys following in perfect silence for about a quarter of an hour, when Frank whispered: “He’s going wrong, right away from the river.”
“Hist!” whispered Hamet, and he went on again for another ten minutes, before Frank tried to speak again.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I know: it isn’t where I thought. There’s a creek runs right up ever so far among the rice-fields. I never went there, but that’s where he is going.”
“Hist!” whispered Hamet.