'He 's left them on guard, and gone to report at headquarters,' said Trentham. 'A brief respite.'
'Till the rising of the moon, I suppose. Well, old boy, I hope it 'll be short--and both together.'
Trentham was silent. He had had many anxious moments since the Raider's first shell had flown screaming over the deck; but it was with a shock of a totally different kind that he now found himself looking with open eyes upon the imminence of death. To a man in health death is unrealisable. But he remembered those hideous figures on the beach, the pig's squeal, and he shuddered.
There was barely light enough to distinguish the savages from their surroundings; but it seemed to him, from their general appearance, that they were of the same tribe as the dancers--possibly they were the dancers themselves. In that case, baulked of one victim, they were only too likely to make the most of the four who had now fallen into their hands. It was not to be hoped that they would relax their watchfulness. Would their leader return at the rising of the moon?
Complete darkness enwrapped them. The blacks talked on endlessly, breaking at times into boisterous laughter.
'Have you tried the knots, Grinson?' Trentham asked.
'Did that first go off, sir,' replied the boatswain in doleful accents. 'I couldn't have tied 'em better myself.'
Each of the prisoners had in fact already wriggled and strained at his bonds, with total unsuccess.
They lay silent again. Presently Grinson let out a torrent of expletives with something like his old vigour. The others questioned him.
'Skeeters!' he cried furiously. 'They 're all over me, and I can't rub my nose.'