“Well, is it a heclipse or an echo, or anything of that kind, over yonder?”
“Where? What do you mean?”
“This ’ere way, sir. You are looking t’other.”
“Nonsense!”
“You are looking the wrong way, sir. Hold them branches back. Yes; it’s getting wuss, sir. Blest if they ain’t burning the Residency down!”
Chapter Forty Four.
The Fisherman’s Plan.
Peter’s conclusion was only a guess, but it soon became evident that a fire was raging somewhere in the direction of the station. But this did not seem to trouble the two Malays, who shifted the position of the boat by pushing it clear of the trees, to one of which they secured the sampan so that it swung in the stream, while they rearranged the greenery that had been collected, and worked hard in the bright moonlight so as to give it some semblance of a market-boat carrying down supplies from higher up the river.