‘Make it!’
‘Hearts!’
And both men dropped their hands and sprang up in affright as a wild scream rang out from the bunk just above them.
As they gazed, a white face, wet with the sweat of fear, poked out and stared down upon them with eyes in which the late terror still lived.
[278]
]‘What the dickens is up?’ asked one, recovering from his surprise, whilst the grumbles of awakened sleepers travelled around the hut.
‘My God! what a dream! what a dream!’ exclaimed the man addressed, sticking out a pair of naked legs, and softly alighting on the earthen floor, and standing there trembling.
‘Shoo!’ said the station wit, as he turned for a fresh start; ‘it’s only Jack the Sailor had the night-horse.’
But the man, crouching close to the players, and wiping his pallid face with his loose shirt sleeve, still exclaimed,—
‘What a dream! My God! What a dream!’
‘Tell us what it were all about, Jack,’ asked one of the others, handing him a pannikin of tea. ‘It oughter been bad, judgin’ by the dashed skreek as you give.’