!Tention Part 7

"Then what did you mean?" cried Pen wonderingly.

The poor lad made a s.n.a.t.c.h at his companion's arm, and tried to draw him down.

"What is it?" said Pen anxiously now, for he was startled by the look in the boy's eyes.

"Want to whisper," came in a broken voice.

"No; you can't have anything to whisper now," said Pen. "There, let me give you a little more water."

The boy shook his head.

"Want to whisper," he murmured in a harsh, low voice.

"Well, what is it? But you had better not. Shut your eyes and have a bit of a nap till you are rested and the faintness has gone. I shall be rested, too, then, and I can get you down into the hut, where I tell you there's a bed, and, better still, Punch, a draught of sweet warm milk."

"Gammon!" said the boy again; and he hung more heavily upon Pen's arm.--"Want to whisper."

"Well, what is it?" said Pen, trying hard to master the feeling of despair that was creeping over him.

"Them wolves!" whispered the boy. "Don't let them get me, comrade, when I'm gone."

"You shut your eyes and go to sleep," cried Pen angrily.

"No," said the boy, speaking more strongly now. "I aren't a baby, and I know what I'm saying. You tell me you won't let them have me, and then I will go to sleep; and then if I don't wake up no more--"

"What!" cried Pen, speaking with a simulated anger, "you won't be such a coward as to go and leave me all alone here?"

The boy started; his eyes brightened a little, and he gazed half-wonderingly in his companion's face.

"I--I didn't think of that, comrade," he faltered. "I was thinking I was going like some of our poor chaps; but I don't want to shirk.

There, I'll try not."

"Of course you will," said Pen harshly. "Now then, try and have a nap."

The boy closed his eyes, and in less than a minute he was breathing steadily and well, but evidently suffering now and then in his sleep, for the hand that clasped Pen's gave a sudden jerk at intervals.

Quite an hour, during which the watcher did not stir, till there was a sharper twitch and the boy's eyes opened, to look wonderingly in his companion's as if he could not recall where he was.

"Have a little water now, Punch?"

"Drop," he said; but the drop proved to be a thirsty draught, and he spoke quite in his senses now as he put a brief question.

"Is it far?" he said.

"To the hut? No. Do you think you can bear me to get you on my back again?"

"Yes. Going to. Look sharp!"

But as soon as the boy felt his companion take hold of his hand after restopping the water-bottle, Punch whispered, "Stop!"

"What is it? Would you like to wait a little longer?"

"No. Give me a bullet out of a cartridge."

"A bullet? What for?"

"To bite," said the boy with a grim smile.

Pen hesitated for a moment in doubt, looking in the boy's smiling eyes the while. Then, as a flash of recollection of stories he had heard pa.s.sed through his mind, he hastily drew a cartridge from his box, broke the little roll open, scattering the powder and setting the bullet free before pa.s.sing it to his companion, who nodded in silence as he seized the piece of lead between his teeth. Then, nodding again, he raised one hand, which Pen took, and seizing one of the branches of the gnarled tree he bent it down till he got it close to his companion, and bade him hold on with all his might.

Punch's fingers closed tightly upon the bough, which acted like a spring and helped to raise its holder sufficiently high for Pen to get him once more upon his shoulders, which he had freed from straps thrown down beside his rifle.

"Try and bear it," he panted, as he heard the low, hissing breath from the poor fellow's lips, and felt him quiver and wince. "I know it's bad," he added encouragingly, "but it won't take me long."

It did not, for in a very few minutes he had reached the rough stone wall, to which he shifted his burden, stood for a few moments panting, and then climbed over, took the sufferer in his arms, and staggered into the waiting shelter, where the next minute Punch was lying insensible upon the bed.

"Ha!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Pen as he pa.s.sed the back of his hand across his streaming forehead.

This suggested another action, but it was the palm of his hand that he laid across his companion's brow.

"All wet!" he muttered. "He can't be very feverish for the perspiration to come like that."

Then he started violently, for a shadow crossed the open door, and he involuntarily threw up one hand to draw his slung rifle from his shoulder, and then his teeth snapped together.

There was no rifle there. It was lying with his cartouche-box right away by the stunted oak, as he mentally called the cork-tree.

The next minute he was breathing freely, for the deep-toned bleat of the goat arose, and he looked out, to see that it was answerable for the shadow.

"Ah, you will have to pay for this," he muttered, as he started to run to where his weapon lay, his mind full now of thoughts that in his efforts over his comrade had been absent.

He was full of expectation that one or other of the vedettes might have caught sight of him bearing his load to the hut; and, with the full determination to get his rifle and hurry back to defend himself and his companion for as long as the cartridges held out, he started with a run up the slope, which proved to be only the stagger of one who was utterly exhausted, and degenerated almost into a crawl.

He was back at last, to find that Punch had not moved, but seemed to be sleeping heavily as he lay upon his sound shoulder; and, satisfied by this, Pen laid his rifle and belts across the foot of the bed and drew a deep breath.

"I can't help it," he nearly groaned. "It isn't selfish; but if I don't have something I can do no more."

Then, strangely enough, he uttered a mocking laugh as he stepped to a rough shelf and took a little pail-like vessel with one stave prolonged into a handle from the place where it had been left clean by the last occupant of the hut, and as he stepped with it to the open door something within it rattled.

He looked down at it in surprise and wonder, and it was some moments before he grasped the fact that the piece of what resembled blackened clay was hard, dry cake.

"Ah!" he half-shouted as he raised it to his lips and tried to bite off a piece, but only to break off what felt like wood, which refused to crumble but gradually began to soften.

Then, smiling grimly, he thrust the cake within his jacket and stepped out, forgetting his pain and stiffness, to find to his dismay that there was no sign of the goat.

"How stupid!" he muttered the next minute. "My head won't go. I can't think." And, recalling the goat's former visit to the rough shelter, he hurried to where he had been a witness of its object, and to his great delight found the animal standing with half-closed eyes nibbling at some of the plentiful herbage while one of its kids was partaking of its evening meal.

Pen advanced cautiously with the little wooden vessel, ready to seize the animal by one of its horns if it attempted to escape, as it turned sharply and stared at him in wonder; but it only sniffed as if in recognition at the little pail, and resumed its browsing. But the kid was disposed to resent the interruption of the stranger, and some little force had to be used to thrust it away, returning again and again to begin to make some pretence of b.u.t.ting at the intruder.

Pen laughed aloud at the absurdity of his task as he finally got rid of the little animal, and made his first essay at milking, finding to his great delight that he was successful, while the goat-mother took it all as a matter of course, and did not move while her new friend refreshed himself with a hearty draught of the contents of the little pail; and then, s.n.a.t.c.hing at a happy thought, drew the hardened cake from his breast and placed it so that it could soak up the soft warm milk which flowed into the vessel.