“Splendid, Mister Archie! Then it’s going to be easy, after all.”
At the end of a few cautiously taken paces the two lads found their progress arrested by bushes, and they stopped short, trying hard to pierce the gloom; but it seemed darker than ever.
“Can you tell where we are, Pete?” whispered Archie, with his lips close to his companion’s ear.
“No, sir; but take care, or we shall step right off the bank into the water somewhere. Think I might strike a match, sir, and chuck it before us?”
“No. If you do we shall be having a spear this time instead of a rifle-butt.”
“Right, sir; but I don’t see how we are going to find a boat unless we wade in and chance it.”
“Let’s get on, and creep through the bushes. It may seem a little lighter close to the water’s edge.”
Hand-in-hand they pressed on, the bushes brushing their faces but yielding easily for a few minutes, and then, as if moved by one impulse, they checked an ejaculation and stood staring straight before them, for all at once a bush they had reached sent forth a little scintillation of light, and as Peter struck out with one hand, he started a fresh sparkle of tiny little lights, as a flight of fire-flies flashed out for a moment, and left the surroundings blacker than ever.
“That’s done it, sir,” whispered Peter. “I saw two quite plain.”
“I saw quite fifty, Pete,” whispered back Archie.