"No doubt," said Mr. Wolston, "but we should have to keep watch in turns, and I think sleep is better. I do not think there is anything for us to fear."
"No," said Ernest confidently; "I have not noticed any suspicious tracks, and we have not heard a growl since we left the Green Valley. We may as well spare ourselves the weariness of keeping watch one after the other."
Jack did not insist, and the travellers prepared to appease their hunger.
The night gave promise of being one of those nights when nature slumbers sweetly, and no breath disturbs the peace. Not a leaf moved among the trees, not the snapping of a twig broke the silence of the plain.
Fawn betrayed no symptoms of uneasiness. No hoarse bark of jackals was heard from afar, although those brutes were so numerous in the island. Upon the whole, there did not seem to be the least imprudence in sleeping under the open sky.
Mr. Wolston and the two brothers dined off the remains of their luncheon and a few turtle eggs, which Ernest had found, roasted among the ashes, with the addition of some of the fresh kernels of the fir-apples which grew in quantities in the neighbourhood, and which have the flavour of the hazel-nut.
The first to close his eyes was Jack, for he was the most tired of the three. He had never stopped beating the thickets and the bushes, often at such a distance that Mr. Wolston had been obliged to call him back. But as he was the first to go to sleep, so, too, was he the first to wake at daybreak.
The three resumed their march at once. An hour later they had to ford a little stream which probably ran into the Montrose five or six miles further on. So at least Ernest believed, taking its south-westerly course into consideration.
There were still the same wide prairies, vast plantations of sugar-cane, and, in the damp places, many clumps of those wax-trees which bear the flower on one stalk and the fruit upon the other.
At last dense forests appeared instead of the trees that grew singly upon the flanks of the Green Valley, cinnamons, palms of various kinds, figs, mangroves, and many bearing no edible fruit, such as spruce and evergreen oak and maritime oak, all of magnificent growth. Except in the few spots where the wax-trees grew, there were no marshy places in this district. Moreover, the ground rose steadily—a fact which deprived Jack of his last hope of meeting any flocks of waterfowl. He would have to be satisfied with the game of plain and forest.