“You will do to cut up fine for finishing in a pipe to-morrow, my jockey,” he said.
He stood listening till the faint sounds of his visitors’ voices had completely died away, and then he settled himself by the hut.
“This is jolly,” he muttered. “One’s safe enough here. That’s a capital lookout, for one quite looks down on the water. Yes; no boat could come up here without my hearing it, and I should see any one paddling along. Well, I will say this: our officers are gentlemen, and never want you to do anything that they wouldn’t do theirselves. Glad the Captain was there too, for I don’t suppose Mr Archie Maine would have ventured to change my place. But I do know what he would have done. I’d bet anybody sixpence, if there was anybody here to bet with and I’d got one, that he’d have stopped to keep me company and— I’m blessed! What’s that?”
The man was standing beneath the spreading eaves of the palm-tree and bamboo hut, quite sheltered by the darkness, and he turned his head on one side to listen, for quite plainly from somewhere up the river, and apparently right under the bank on the other side, he heard the sound of paddles, as if a big boat were approaching.
“Why, I shouldn’t wonder,” he thought to himself, “if that boat has been hanging about there waiting till there was no one on the shore. Blessed if I don’t think they heard us talking and fancy our officers have took the sentry away. Well, I shall jolly soon know. How rum! It must be a big boat; and it’s scared the crocs away, for I can’t hear them a bit now. All right; I’m ready for you, whoever you are. Not fire, eh? But I’ll tell ’em I will if they don’t give up. I wonder who it is. Only fishermen perhaps; but it will give one something to do.”
He drew himself a little closer beneath the projecting attap roof, which extended three or four feet over the sides of the hut, and then felt startled, for suddenly there fell upon his ears, evidently coming from somewhere inland, a rustling sound of footsteps, accompanied by the hard breathing of some one suffering from over-exertion.
“Boat coming ashore! Some one coming down to the landing-place! What does this ’ere mean?” muttered the sentry. “Well, it’s only one;” and he peered carefully from his shelter, trying to make out the approaching figure.
But it was too dark, and he waited a full minute before stepping out boldly; and his rifle gave a loud click, click, as he cried:
“Halt! Who goes there?”
His answer was a sharp half-cry, half-gasp of astonishment, and the loud breathing became quite a pant, like that of an excited dog.