“What was that?” he whispered.
“Spear,” said the man, laconically; and they heard him drag the weapon out of the thwart into which it had stuck.
The shouting continued, and it was as if two parties were answering one another; but the sounds grew more distant, and Ned realised that they were gliding down the stream.
“They’ll come after us in another boat,” panted Ned.
“No. No boat,” said the man.
“Oh, Hamet, old chap,” whispered Frank, “we thought they had krissed you, and that we heard you go down the river.”
“No,” said the man, quietly. “Two men keeping boat. Not hurt.”
Ned felt a strange shrinking sensation, and his imagination supplied the facts of the case, as he mentally saw their friend wade in the darkness up to where this boat had been moored, and attack its guardians. He shuddered, and dared think no more, but, happily, Frank began whispering to him just then.
“This is one of the little nagas,” he said. “I know it. The men used it to take us up the river. They did not know it would be all right for us to escape. I say, Hamet, how far is it down to the rajah’s campong?”
“Don’t know,” said the man quietly, using an oar so as to get the boat’s head down stream, and farther from the bank, where the fireflies were still flitting at intervals.