“Me keep filst watch, mastel, same as last night,” he remarked ingratiatingly.
Frobisher looked fixedly at him for a few moments, and Ling lowered his eyes.
“No, my man,” answered the Englishman; “I keep first watch to-night. You kept it yesterday, I keep it to-day. Now run away and get your rest, Ling. I expect you need it after your experience this morning.”
Ling gritted his teeth under his long, scanty moustache. This arrangement would not suit his plans at all. Why could not these eccentric westerners be consistent? he wondered. The Englishman kept second watch yesterday, and Ling had fully expected that he would do the same again; while now—
“Me lathel watch filst, mastel,” he pleaded; “me no sleepy. You sleep now, mastel; me look out.”
“Look here, my man,” exclaimed Frobisher, wrathfully, “who’s master here, you or I? Just understand this, as it will save trouble in the future. When I tell you to do a thing, just remember that you’ve got to do it, and do it at once. Now, get away to wherever you’re going to lie down, and I’ll call you when it’s time for you to go on duty. No, not another word; off you go, without any more palaver.”
For a moment it seemed as though Ling intended to disobey. Then the Englishman’s great stature and commanding presence had their effect, and he slunk off and lay down under one of the wagons, but not to sleep. He simply lay there leaning on his elbow, regarding Frobisher with a malignant expression. About a couple of hours later, after darkness had fallen upon the camp for some considerable time, and the rest of the men were asleep, he began to listen for something; and Frobisher would have been intensely interested could he but have glanced into Ling’s mind and read what was working there.
About ten o’clock Frobisher began to feel so drowsy, that although he had made the rounds only half an hour previously he determined to repeat them, in order to avoid falling asleep at his post; so, taking up the lantern and cautiously feeling his way, to avoid stepping on the slumbering forms of any of the men, he began again to make the circuit of the camp.
Ling had been in his place, apparently sound asleep, when Frobisher had passed half an hour previously, but when the young man now directed the light of his lantern under Ling’s cart he saw that the fellow was no longer there; and a hurried survey of the camp soon convinced him that the Korean was nowhere within the circle of the carts. He must therefore be outside, Frobisher argued; and, if outside, where, and what doing?
There could be but one answer to that question, so, without a moment’s hesitation, Frobisher set to work to arouse the slumbering Koreans, afterwards herding them in front of him until he had them all collected together in a little knot in the centre of the camp.