They knew the tremendous risk undertaken by their comrade, but there was not one of them who would have shirked it, had not all yielded it to the one whom they knew to be the best fitted for the task.
Henry crept forward silently, bringing to his aid all the years of skill that he had acquired in his life in the wilds.

His body was like that of a serpent, going forward, coil by coil.

He was near enough now to see the embers of the fire not yet quite dead, the dark figures scattered about it, sleeping upon the grass with the long ease of custom, and then the outline of the woman apart from the others with the children about her.

Henry now lay entirely flat, and his motions were genuinely those of a serpent.

It was by a sort of contraction and relaxation of the body that he moved himself, and his progress was absolutely soundless.
The object of his advance was the woman.