The sentry waited in the shade of the hut till the boat came nearer, and then challenged, when a familiar voice responded:
“That you, Peter Pegg?”
“Mister Archie, sir! Yes, sir.”
“It’s all right. We are going up the river a little way in the moonlight. Beautiful night!”
“Yes, sir; lovely, sir. I’d be on the lookout, sir, though.”
“What for?”
“Them alligator things, sir. I have heard a good many of them knocking about there.”
“Oh, they won’t come near us with the men splashing as they pole us along.”
The boat passed on, and as the sentry had a glimpse of a white face and the folds of a veil he stood musing and watching till the boat had passed and disappeared.
“No,” he thought, “I don’t suppose the brutes will go near them. They soon scuttle off when they hear a splash. Nice to be him, enj’ying hisself with his lady. Wonder who it is. Miss Doctor, perhaps. Nice girl. But he’s only a boy. Wish I was a officer. I used to think it would be all the same for us when I ’listed. My word, how the Sergeant did lay on the butter and jam! And talked about the scarlet, and being like a gentleman out here abroad with the niggers to wait on us—and then it comes to this! Sentry-go for hours in a lonely place like this here, with crocklygaters hanging about to see if you go to sleep to give them a chance to make a grab. Yes, they make a fellow feel sleepy! Just likely, ain’t it?”