Part 88 (1/2)
”Not a bit, sir. What's the good? Don't make it any better to go on the dump. It can't last. It's like the weather--either gets better or it gets worse. My word, what a fine thing a bit o' sleep is! Bit cool though. Always is just before sunrise. Seen anything of the yacht, sir?”
”Bah! Impossible! How could I?”
Ned said nothing, but glanced at the dimly-seen paddlers working away, and at the sleeping party who were in the bottom of the canoe, and then turned his attention astern.
”Wonder where they are taking us, sir,” he said. ”There must be a big island somewhere out in this direction, and--”
He became silent so suddenly that Jack turned to him in surprise, and saw that he was gazing fixedly over the stern of the canoe into the black darkness, for there was no sign of the coming day.
”What are you thinking?” said Jack at last.
”That I shall have to report you to the captain, sir, for not keeping better watch. I didn't set you to it. You volunteered.”
”What do you mean, Ned?” cried Jack excitedly.
”You said, when I asked you whether you had seen anything of the yacht, 'Bah! Impossible! How could I?'”
”Well, how could I in the dark?”
”By keeping a bright look-out, sir. There's her light.”
”What!” cried Jack.
”Steady, sir, steady. Don't jump out of the boat.”
”But you don't mean--”
”Oh yes, I do, sir. Look yonder.”
”Oh, nonsense!” cried Jack bitterly; ”that must be a star setting in the west.”
”Well, it may be, sir, and if it is, it's so close down that in another five minutes it'll be one; but it strikes me that there's a little lighter look yonder, and that it's the east. Of course I don't know for certain like, and I've been asleep. Let's watch for a bit. I believe it's our star as the guv'nor's had lit up to let us know he's coming after us--that's what I think, sir.”
”It is too much to hope,” said Jack despondently.
”Not a bit, sir. You can't say but what it's as likely as likely. But there, we shall soon know. I wonder whether the n.i.g.g.e.rs have seen it yet.”
Evidently they had not, and this, knowing how sharp-eyed they were, strengthened Jack's belief that it was only a star, and he said so.
”All right, sir,” said Ned, after a long watching, ”pr'a'ps you're right; but it's a new kind if it is, for it don't come up nor it don't go down. Anyhow that's the east, for the sun means to come up there, or I'm a Dutchman.”
They sat watching for about a quarter of an hour longer, and then Jack exclaimed softly--
”You were wrong, Ned, it was a star, and it has sank out of sight.”
”Down in the east, sir?”
”It cannot be the east, Ned, it must be the west.”
”Then it's last night again, sir, and that's a speck left up to show where the sun went down.”