The fires in the advanced boats were now all put out, and nothing evinced the neighbourhood of our dangerous enemy; while the lovely moon once more looked forth on us, her silver orb reflected on the arrowy streams of the dark river, in a long trembling wake of sparkling ripples, and all was as quiet as if she had been smiling on a scene of peace and gentleness.
To what peculiarity in my moral composition it was to be attributed I do not know, but the change from the infernal scene we had just witnessed to the heavenly quietude of a lovely night had an instantaneous, almost an electrical effect on me; and, wounded and ill at heart as I was, I could not help looking up, out and away from my grovelling condition, until in fancy I forgot my miserable whereabouts, and only saw the deep blue heaven, and its countless stars, and the chaste moon.
"Hillo, Benjie Brail," shouted friend Davie—"where away, my lad? Come back to mother earth"—("alma mater tellus," said a voice near me—Corporal Lennox for a thousand, thought I)—"my dear boy, the bright sky overhead, that I make no doubt you are apostrophising so poetically, will soon be shrouded by that brooding mist there—never doubt me."
He augured rightly; for, in a little, a thick haze did in very deed begin to mantle over the water, and continued to increase until the glorious planet and bright stars were again obscured, and you could scarcely see the length of the felucca.
Quacco's hint, however, was by no means thrown away on us; we immediately saw all clear to give our savage neighbours a warm reception, should they venture down under cover of the fog.
We had been some time at quarters, the boats astern having been hauled up alongside, lest, in the fog, some of the canoes might venture near enough to cut the painters. But every thing continued so quiet and still, that we were beginning to consider our warlike preparations might not altogether have teen called for.
"I say, Sprawl," said I—"Poo, these poor creatures will not venture down on us; especially after the lesson they had yesterday?"
"Don't trust to that, Brail, my good boy," said Davie.
"No, massa, don't you trust to dat, as Massa Prawl say," quoth Quacco—"I know someting—ah, you shall see." Here the poor fellow crept close up to Dick Lanyard, "Captain—if you love sleep in one skin hab no hole in him—if, massa, you walue de life of dem sailor intrust to you—ill-bred fellow as dem may be,—let no one—no—not so mosh as de leetle dirty cook-boy—shut him eyelid until to-morrow sun melt de fog, and"——
Something dropped at my foot, with a splintering sort of sound, as if you had cast a long dry reed on the deck. "What is that?" said I.