ave;
and then he came to the determination that he would crawl to where Dick
Roberts lay sleeping so heavily that his breathing had become a deep
snore.

"Poor fellow," he sighed; "he has suffered badly enough, but I ought to
try and put him in an easier position. It is his wound which makes him
so uneasy."

Then he thought he would wait a little longer before waking his comrade
and telling him that he was going back to the old hiding-place to say
where they were.

Murray had just come to the conclusion that he ought to be content with
the rest he had snatched, when there was a faint rustling sound just
beyond the doorway where he had seated himself, and like a flash he
recalled the scene in the planter's cottage where Tom May had shrunk
from going up into the chamber behind the screen on account of the
snakes--poisonous or not. This was a thatched cottage place, up whose
angles or sides one of the reptiles that had lurked among the bananas
and maize of the plantation could easily have made its way to the roof,
ready to descend upon any one sleeping on the floor.

So suggestive was this thought that the midshipman felt startled and
drew himself up slightly, feeling that he ought to go to his companion's
assistance.

"Perhaps poisonous," he thought, "and I may get a bite if I disturb it
in the darkness. Perhaps, too, it may be tired out as I am, and drop
asleep without molesting either me or Roberts. He's not sleeping so
heavily now," he thought, "and I ought to be off trying to find poor
worn-out and hungry Titely. I wonder how far he has wandered away from
where he was left. I ought to have found him, but it wasn't to be
helped. Tom will know now. I wonder how long it will take me to get to
where we left the poor fellow? But is that Dick Roberts breathing
hard--snoring--or is it one of those snakes creeping about in the
maize-leaf thatch? I wonder what I had better do! Of course I can't
leave poor Dick, but it's a pity that he should make all that noise. It
is like trying to betray himself.

"I think I must go and wake the poor fellow. It isn't fair to leave
him, of course. And it isn't fair to leave poor Tom May lying done up
and faint for want of water. It's rather hard, though, when I'm so done
up too;" and then he thought how beautiful it was with the soft yellow
moonlight of the tropical night shining through the Indian corn leaves
down through the roof of the flimsy hut, on to the floor clo