Part 97 (2/2)
CHAPTER FORTY SIX.
SAMSON DISOBEYS ORDERS.
”Ho! Scar!”
No answer.
”Hoi! Scar Markham!”
The second call was louder, and this time Fred Forrester had thrust his head down the hole, so that his voice went echoing along the pa.s.sage, and died away in a whisper; but the only effect it had was to produce a low chuckling sound from Samson.
”What are you laughing at, sir?” cried Fred, angrily.
”Only at you, Master Fred, sir.”
”How dare--”
”No, no; don't be cross with me, sir. I only felt as you'd have felt if you'd been me, and I'd been you.”
”What do you mean?”
”Why, it seemed so rum for us to have slipped down here again, pretending to fish, so as to be laughed at because we hadn't caught any, and for you to turn yourself upside down, with your head in the hole, and your legs up in the air, shouting like that!”
”Don't be a donkey, Samson.”
”No, Master Fred; I'll promise you that, faithful like; but it do seem rum. 'Tarn't likely, you know, sir, 'tarn't likely.”
”What isn't likely?”
”Why, that aren't, sir. Even if Master Scar is hiding there.”
”If? He must be. n.o.body else knows of the existence of the place.”
”Wouldn't our Nat, sir?”
”No. How could he?”
”Well, sir, I can't say how he could; but he always was a nasty hunting-up-things sort of boy. So sure as I hid anything in my box at home, or anywhere else, he'd never rest till he found it; and as he was hiding away here, he may have hunted out this hole, and took possession like a badger.”
”It might be so,” said Fred, thoughtfully; and he approached the hole once more.
”'Tarn't no good, Master Fred,” said Samson, chuckling. ”You might just as well go to a rabbit's hole, and shout down that, 'Hoi! bunny, bunny, come out and have your neck broken.'”
”Don't talk so,” said Fred, angrily.
”No, sir, not a word; but you forget that we're enemies now, and that it's of no use to call to Master Scarlett or our Nat to come, because they won't do it. There's two ways, sir, and that's all I can make out, after no end of thinking.”
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