Dead Man's Land Part 8

"Well, you go on getting better."

"Better, sir! I am better," cried the man sharply. "I know I don't look thin and like a fellow on the sick list, but the time I overhauled you down there at the port I felt like a walking shadder."

"Ah, that's the doctor's physic," said Dean.

"Physic, sir? Why, he never give me none--nothing but some white stuff--ten drips as he let drop carefully out of a little bottle. No, sir, it warn't that, but getting up here where one could breathe, and now instead of lying awake in the dark with the mysture running off one's face in drops, I just put my head down of a night feeling the cold air blowing over one, and the next minute I am fast asleep."

"Yes, one can sleep here," said Mark, "sound as a top."

"Yes, sir; same here, sir. Oh, I shall be all right in a day or two, sir, if I can get to work. I don't hold with hanging about with them two men of yourn looking at me as if I warn't worth my salt."

"Do they?" said Mark sharply.

"Well, perhaps it arn't that, sir, but that's what I feel."

"But look here," cried Mark; "aren't they civil to you? Because we are not going to stand that; are we, Dean?"

"Certainly not."

"Beg pardon, sir; please don't you go a-thinking that I'm a-finding fault."

"You look here," said Mark. "If they--"

"Oh, I beg your pardon, sir," said the man. "You see, it's like this; you picked me up, quite a stranger, and it's quite nat'ral that they shouldn't like a chap on the sick list stuck along with them all at once."

"It's no business of theirs," said Mark shortly. "They have come out here with us to do their duty; and just now it's their duty to do what's right by you, and if my father or the doctor knew that--what?"

"Well, sir, I daresay I'm wrong, but I've got it into my head that one of them feels a bit jealous like that I'm going to step into his shoes and that he'll be dismissed his ship."

"Pshaw!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mark angrily. "He has no right to think anything of the kind. You three have got to work together and be like messmates, as you sailors call it."

"That's right, sir; messmates is the word; but--" The man stopped.

"Well, out with it," said Mark. "What were you going to say?"

"Well, sir," said the man, hesitating, and he turned now to look half appealingly at Dean, "you see, sir, I am a bit weak still in the head."

"Of course you are! Then go on getting strong."

"Thankye, sir; that's what I am doing," said the man; "but I can't help every now and then thinking that all this 'ere is too good to be true, and that as soon as Sir James and the doctor thinks that I'm all right again they will say, `There, my lad, you are about fit to shift for yourself, and you can go.'"

"Oh, I see," said Mark sarcastically.

"Yes, sir, that's it," said the man, with a sigh.

"Now, let's see," said Mark, and he gave his cousin a peculiar look; "I suppose, fairly speaking, it will take about a month before you are quite right again."

"Bless your heart, sir, not it! Fortnight, more likely; I should say about a week."

"Well, I hope that in a month's time--for that's what I'll give you; eh, Dean?"

"Oh, quite," said his cousin decisively.

"Well, I will put it at three weeks," said Mark, "and by that time I hope we shall be a couple of hundred miles farther up the country, with the ponies and the waggons and the teams of oxen all with us in travelling trim, right away in the wild country, where there's no settlement--not a house--nothing but here and there one of the blacks'

camps--kraals, as they call them; eh, Dean?"

"Yes, that's right."

"Well, then, at the end of that time--oh, I shall make it a month--"

The man drew a deep breath.

"And then my father will have a quiet chat with the doctor and take his opinion. He always goes by Dr Robertson's opinion, doesn't he, Dean?"

"Always," said his cousin.

"And then he'll what slang people call sack you. You sailors don't say sack, do you?"

"No, sir," said the man sadly. "When I was in the Royal Navy we used to call it being paid off."

"Well, it doesn't matter," said Mark. "Then of course when we are hundreds of miles from everywhere my father will pay you off."

"Oh, no, sir," said the man earnestly, "I don't expect no pay."

"Never mind what you expect. My father, I say, will tell you to be off and shift for yourself and get back to that moist oven of a port the best way you can. Won't he, Dean?"

Dean caught his cousin's eye, and said decisively, "Yes, of course.

That's just like uncle;" and by means of an effort he kept his face straight, looking, as Mark afterwards told him, like a badly carved piece of solid mahogany.

"Yes, sir," said the man sadly; "and I daresay I shall be able to steer my way right enough, and for all his kindness I shall be very thankful, and--"

"Yah!" shouted Mark. "Didn't I tell you that if ever you spoke again like that I'd--I'd--"

"I beg your pardon, sir."

"This chap's very weak still in his head, Dean, or else he would not dare to think that an English gentleman would behave like a cad. There, man Dan--no, I mean Dan Mann--just make up your mind that you are in for this trip with all its troubles and hard work."

"Do you mean it, sir?" cried the man, and he looked from one to the other.

"Mean it? Why, of course we do. So never say anything about it again.

Ah, here come father and the doctor. Would you like to ask them if what we say is true?"

"Not now, sir," said the man. "I am a bit weak still, more shaky than I thought."

The poor fellow's voice sounded very husky during the last few words, and he hurried away, watched by the boys.

"I say, Dean, he's better," said Mark. "He could not walk like that a fortnight ago. Do you know, I begin to like that chap. He's rather comic looking, but he is such a regular sailor."

"Yes," said Dean, "with quite a sailor's frank boyish sort of way."