They were still feeding the fire and the pyramid of light rose to an extraordinary height, but Robert knew the peril was elsewhere.

It would come on the surface of the lake and he shifted his gaze to the gray waters, searching everywhere for Indian canoes.

He believed that they would appear first in the north and he scoured the horizon there from side to side, trying to detect the first black dot when it should show over the lake.
The waters where his eyes searched were wholly in darkness, an unbroken black line of the sky meeting a heaving surface.

He looked back and forth over the whole extent, a half dozen times, and found nothing to break the continuity.

Hope that the warriors of Tandakora were not coming sprang up in his breast, but he put it down again.
Although imagination was so strong in him he was nevertheless, in moments of peril, a realist.