'Well, I guess we 'll take a little food first. We shall have to rely on our biscuits; we haven't happened on any orchards yet.'
'Plenty bread-fruit yonder,' said Haan, waving his arm towards the hill, 'and coco-palms, and pawpaws. Yes, we eat our lunch and rest. De sun is bursting drough; it will be very hot. Last night we sleep little. A nap--forty vinks you call it--will refresh us, den we go stronger.'
'A capital idea!' said Trentham. 'I say, Mr. Haan, it was lucky you found us when you did.'
'Yes,' said Haan drily. 'But we must still be on guard. We must not all sleep togeder.'
'Of course not. We 'll take turns again--we three. Let the men off. They have the hardest job, though their loads will be lighter when we start again. I 'll take first watch, then you, Hoole. Mr. Haan must be more tired than we two.'
'It is no matter,' remarked Haan, 'and I am used to a hard life. I can stand fatigue better than you two young gentlemen. But certainly I can sleep wid pleasure. Two hours--dat will give forty minutes each. Yes; and I haf no watch; de niggers strip off my coat. You wake me, Mr. Hoole, and lend me your watch, so I wake you; and I give you no more dan forty minutes--not one second.'
He laughed in a clumsily roguish way. They cleared a space and sat down to their meal of biscuits and water. Haan was the first to throw himself on his back, his bald head shaded by the spreading candelabra-like branches of a screw pine. The rest were not slaw to follow his example, except Trentham, who sat on the keg, and lit a cigarette to keep himself awake.
Eighty minutes later Hoole, having completed his spell of watching, touched Haan lightly on the shoulder. The man did not stir. He tickled his ear with a spray of some feathery plant; Haan slept on.
'I 'll give him another five minutes,' thought Hoole, yawning.
At the end of that time, by dint of poking Haan in the ribs and pinching his nose, he succeeded in waking the Dutchman.