to roast at daybreak."

"But the ground! it is so damp," said Rob.

"A few boughs will keep off the damp, Mr Rob, sir; so I say, let's all
sleep."

"But oughtn't we to keep watch in turns, Naylor?" said Brazier.

"In an ordinary way, sir, yes, one would say it's a duty--what a man
should do," replied the guide gravely; "and I don't deny there's dangers
about. But we've done all we can do, as men without weapons, by
lighting that fire. I shall wake up now and then to throw on some
branches and then lie down again. We can do no good more than we have
done, and at a time like this I always think it is a man's duty to say,
`Can I do anything else?' and, if he feels he can't, just say his bit of
prayer and leave it to One above to watch over him through the dark
hours of the night."

"Amen," said Brazier solemnly, and half an hour after, a pile of freshly
broken-off boughs had been laid near the fire, and all lay down in
perfect faith and trust to sleep and wait for the next day.

Shaddy dropped off at once, while Brazier lay talking in a low tone to
Rob, trying to instil some hopefulness.

"Please God," he said at last, "day will bring us help and counsel, my
lad, and perhaps give prospects of finding poor Joe."

He ceased speaking, and directly after Rob knew by his regular breathing
that he too was asleep. But that greatest blessing would not come to
the boy, and he lay gazing now at the dancing flames, now trying to
pierce the darkness beyond, and ever and again seeing dangers in the
apparently moving shadows cast by the fire.

There were the noises, too, in the forest and along the river bank,
sounding more appalling than ever, and as he listened and tried to
picture the various creatures that howled, shrieked, and uttered those
curious cries, he fully expected to hear that peculiar terror-inspiring
sound which had puzzled even Shaddy, the old traveller and sojourner in
the forest wilds.

The horrible cry did not come, but as Rob lay there, too weary to sleep,
too much agitated by the events of the day to grow calm and fit for
rest, that sound always seemed to the lad as if it were about to break
out close to where he lay, and the fancy made his breath come short and
thick, till the remembrance of his boy-comrade once more filled his
mind, and he lay trying to think out some way by which it was possible
that Joe had escaped that day. These thoughts stayed in his mind as the
fire died out from before his