“This is a most awkward business,” said Mark, as he laid the man carefully on the ground, and put a bundle of grass under his head for a pillow. “It behoves us to push on our journey without delay, yet it will never do to leave him here alone, and we can’t very well take him on with us. What is to be done!”
Both Hockins and the negro looked their incapacity to answer that question. Just then the answer came in the form they least expected, for a sound of many voices in clamorous talk suddenly broke on their ears. The speakers, whoever they might be, were still distant, and the formation of the ground prevented our travellers being seen by them.
“Savages!” exclaimed Mark and Hockins in the same breath.
“Hide!” cried Ebony, with a roll of his huge eyes, as he suited the action to the word, and leaped into the bushes. The others followed his example, and running about a hundred yards back into the woods, climbed into the branches of a lofty tree, from which outlook, well screened by leaves, they saw a band composed of some hundreds of natives walking smartly over the open plain. From the manner of their approach it was evident that they searched for some one, and as they made straight for the cliff where the wounded man lay, it seemed probable that they were following up his trail.
“We’re done for,” said Mark, in a tone of despair, as he noted this.
“Why d’ee think so, Doctor?” asked Hockins, who did not by any means seem to take such a gloomy view of their case.
“Don’t you see? Savages can follow up people’s trails almost as well as dogs. They’ll easily trace us to the foot of this tree by our footprints, and then they’ve only to look up!”
“That’s true. I had forgotten that.”
“Dere’s time to drop down yit, massa, and squatilate,” suggested the negro, excitedly.
Mark shook his head.