He devoutly hoped that it would be so.

The lad who had been so lonely and desolate an hour or two before, longing for the arrival of human beings, was equally eager, now that they had come, that they should go away.
The men began to talk in some foreign tongue, Spanish or Portuguese or a Levantine jargon, perhaps, and searched assiduously along the edges of the forest.

Robert, lurking in the undergrowth, caught the word "aqua" or "agua," which he knew meant water, and so he was right in his surmise about their errand.

There was a fine spring about two hundred yards farther on, and he hoped they would soon stumble upon it.
All his skill as a trailer, though disused now for many months, came back to him.

He was able to steal through the grass and bushes without making any noise and to creep near enough to hear the words they said.
They went half way to the spring, then stopped and began to talk.