“Then you stopped up in that shelter for long enough?”
“I just did, sir—for hours.”
“Did you go to sleep?”
“Did I go to sleep, sir? No! Never felt so full of wide-awake in my life. Why, if you had heard that there thing roar—”
“I did hear it roar,” said Archie quietly; “and it kept me awake all night.”
“Hark at that now, sir,” said Peter. “My word, Mister Archie, sir! wouldn’t one of them be a fine thing to train young recruities with, and teach them how to keep awake on sentry?”
“But you said something to me, Peter, about having to make our escape by daylight. Why?”
“Why, sir? Because as soon as you try and travel out in that there jungle, it’s so dark that you can’t tell which way to steer.”
“But we should have to trust to the elephant—if we could get him.”
“Oh, that wouldn’t do, sir. We should have trouble enough with it all clear daylight. I’ve thought it all over till my head won’t think, and it’s all as clear as crystial. We must wait for morning, when the helephant comes for his titbits before one of these chaps mounts guard, and then slip out and chance it. I believe in chance, sir—chance and cheek. You can often do things by risking it when you makes all sorts of plans and fails.”