“Now, you know,” said Breezy, with a sigh of relief, “this is very satisfactory as far as it goes, and we have reason to be thankful that we are neither speared nor dashed to pieces; nevertheless, we are in an uncomfortable fix here, for night is approaching, and we must retrace our steps somehow or other, unless we make up our minds to sleep standing.”
“That’s so, doctor. There’s not room to lie down here,” assented the sailor, glancing slowly round; “an’, to tell ’ee the plain truth, I feel as funky about trustin’ myself again to that serpent-like creeper as I felt the first time I went up through the lubber-hole the year I went to sea.”
“What you’s ’fraid ob, Mr ’Ockins?” asked Ebony.
“Afraid o’ the nasty thing givin’ way under my weight. If it was a good stout rope, now, I wouldn’t mind, but every crack it gave when I was comin’ aloft made my heart jump a’most out o’ my mouth.”
“What have ’ee found there, doctor?” asked the seaman, on observing that his companion was groping behind a mass of herbage at the back part of the niche in which they stood.
“There’s a big hole here, Hockins. Perhaps we may find room to stay where we are, after all, till morning. Come here, Ebony, you’ve got something of the eel about you. Try if you can wriggle in.”
The negro at once thrust his head and shoulders into the hole, but could not advance.
“Bery strange!” he said, drawing out his head, and snorting once or twice like a dog that has half-choked himself in a rabbit-hole. “Seems to me dere’s a big block o’ wood dere stoppin’ de way.”
“Strange indeed, Ebony. A block of wood could not have grown there. Are you sure it is not a big root?”
“Sartin’ sure, massa. I hab studied roots since I was a babby. Hold on, I try again.”