e boat came nearer, and
then challenged, when a familiar voice responded:

"That you, Peter Pegg?"

"Mister Archie, sir! Yes, sir."

"It's all right. We are going up the river a little way in the
moonlight. Beautiful night!"

"Yes, sir; lovely, sir. I'd be on the lookout, sir, though."

"What for?"

"Them alligator things, sir. I have heard a good many of them knocking
about there."

"Oh, they won't come near us with the men splashing as they pole us
along."

The boat passed on, and as the sentry had a glimpse of a white face and
the folds of a veil he stood musing and watching till the boat had
passed and disappeared.

"No," he thought, "I don't suppose the brutes will go near them. They
soon scuttle off when they hear a splash. Nice to be him, enj'ying
hisself with his lady. Wonder who it is. Miss Doctor, perhaps. Nice
girl. But he's only a boy. Wish I was a officer. I used to think it
would be all the same for us when I 'listed. My word, how the Sergeant
did lay on the butter and jam! And talked about the scarlet, and being
like a gentleman out here abroad with the niggers to wait on us--and
then it comes to this! Sentry-go for hours in a lonely place like this
here, with crocklygaters hanging about to see if you go to sleep to give
them a chance to make a grab. Yes, they make a fellow feel sleepy!
Just likely, ain't it?"

Peter Pegg's thoughts seemed to animate him, and for a turn or two he
changed his pace from a slow march to double.

"Steady, my lad!" he muttered. "There ain't no hurry;" and he dropped
back into the regular pace, and began thinking about the boat and its
occupants.

"Nice young lady she is; and I suppose that there Sir Charles is going
to make a match with her, for she and Mister Archie always seem just
like brother and sister. I suppose he ain't been well. Been precious
quiet lately. Can't have offended him, for he was as jolly as could be
last time I saw him. He's getting more solid-like and growed up. But
my word, what fun we have had together sometimes! And what a row there
would have been if we had been found out! It wouldn't have done. But
it has cheered me up many a time when I have had the miserables and felt
as if I'd like to cut sojering and make for home. It was nice to have a
young officer somewheres about your own age ready for a lark. Poor old
Mother Smithers, and that brown juice--what do they call it--cutch and
gambia?--as dyes things b