The Vast Abyss Part 64

"Coward, am I?" cried Tom, rising. "You get up, and I'll show you."

"Ow--ow--ow! Help! help!"

"Get up," said Tom, giving his adversary a thrust with his foot, and another and another, feeling a kind of fierce satisfaction in so doing, for every thrust brought forth a howl.

"Will you get up?" cried Tom.

"I carn't; yer've broke my ribs and killed me--yer coward."

It could not have been after all any magnification of Pete's eyes that caused him to say this, for Tom now saw, that where the malicious-looking orbs had been which looked at him so triumphantly a short time before, there were two tight-looking slits, from which the great tears were squeezing themselves out, as the humbled tyrant went on blubbering like a boy of eight or nine.

Tom drew back from his adversary, for the war-fire which Pete had lit in him was nearly burned out, and his regular nature was coming back to smooth over the volcanic outburst which had transformed him for the time being.

"Hope I don't look like that," was his first thought, as he gazed down at Pete's face as if it were a newly-silvered mirror, and in it saw a reflection of his own. But as he looked it was dimly, and he felt that his eyes must be all swollen up, his lips cut against his teeth, his cheeks puffy, and his nose--

"Ugh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Tom; "how disgusting!"

He put up his hands to his face as the above thought came into his head, and then shuddered with dismay.

There was no mistake about it, for he knew that if anything he was in a worse plight than the blubbering young ruffian before him. His hands, too: not only were they sadly smeared and stained, but the skin was off his knuckles, and now, as if all at once, he began to tingle, smart, and ache all over, while a horrible feeling of repentance came over him, and regret for what had happened.

"What a brute I must look!" he thought; and then, "How terribly I have knocked him about!"

Then with the feelings of regret and compunction, he began to wonder whether Pete was seriously hurt.

"Can't be," he thought the next minute; "he makes too much noise," and he recalled the howlings when the explosion took place at the mill.

"He's thoroughly beaten," Tom said to himself, as he dabbed his bleeding face and knuckles, growing more sore and stiff minute by minute.

"This is a rum way of trying to make friends, and to improve him," he thought dismally, as he went on. "Oh dear, what a mess I'm in!"

Just then so dismally prolonged a howl came from Pete, that, without looking round, Tom cried angrily in his pain--

"Don't make that row; I'm as bad as you. Come: get up."

He turned then to enforce his order with a little stirring up with his foot, but a sharp snarl made him start back in wonder, for there, after creeping quietly up among the furze, was Pete's thin cur seated upon his master's chest, and ready to defend him now against any one's approach.

"Well done, dog!" thought Tom. "I never liked you before. Here then, old fellow," he cried aloud, as he thought of the way in which the master used the dog, brutally as a rule. "I'm not going to hurt him.

Let's get him to sit up."

But the dog barked fiercely as it rose on four legs, and showed its teeth, while Tom pressed a hand over one eye, tried to keep the other open, and burst out laughing at the sight before him.

"Oh dear! I mustn't laugh, it hurts so," he cried; and then he laughed again. For there was Pete's distorted comically swollen face in the bright sunshine, and in front of it the dog's, puffed up in the most extraordinary one-sided manner, making the head look like some fancy sketch of a horrible monster drawn by an artist in fun.

"It must be from the adder's bite," thought Tom, as a feeling of compa.s.sion was extended now to the dog, who, in spite of his menaces, looked giddy and half stupefied.

"Here, are you going to lie howling there all day?" cried Tom.

"Ow--ow--ow! I want a doctor," groaned the lad; and he threw out his arms and legs again, nearly dislodging the dog from his chest.

"No, you don't," cried Tom. "Here then, old fellow, let's look at your nose," he said softly, as he advanced closer, and the dog snarled again, but not so fiercely.

"Get out! I don't want to hurt you," said Tom gently. "Let's have a look at your nose then."

The dog looked up at him with one eye,--the other was completely shut,-- and Tom put his hand closer. Then the poor animal uttered a faint howl, not unlike his master's; and as Tom touched the swollen side of its head, it leaned it heavily in his hand, and whined softly, looking up piteously the while.

"Poor old chap then!" said Tom, forgetting his own sufferings as the dog stepped slowly off its master's chest, staggered, and then leaned up against the friendly legs so near, drooping head and tail the while.

"Here, Pete," cried Tom excitedly, "your dog's dying."

"Eh?" cried Pete, sitting up suddenly, and looking very like the poor brute as he managed to open one eye.

"That adder bit him. Look at his swollen head."

"So it has," said Pete. "Come here, young un!"

But the dog did not stir.

"Where's there some water?" said Tom.

"Down by the ford," replied Pete, quietly enough now.

"People would see us there. Is there none nearer?"

"There's some in the frog pond," replied Pete.

"Stop a minute; I know," said Tom. "Ah, poor old chap, then!" he cried excitedly, for the dog suddenly gave a lurch and fell upon its side.

"I say," cried Pete wildly, as he rose to his knees, and caught hold of one of the forelegs; "he arn't going to croak, is he?"

"I don't know; I'm afraid so. But look here, the adder's bite was poison; wouldn't it do good to let some of the poison out?"

"Does good if you've got a thorn in your foot," said Pete, who seemed to have forgotten all about his broken ribs, and the fact that he was dying.

"Shall I open the place with my sharp penknife?"

"Couldn't do no harm."

Tom hesitated a moment, and took hold of the dog's muzzle, when the poor brute whined softly, looked at him with its half-closed eyes, and made a feeble effort to lick his hand.

Tom hesitated no longer. He opened the keen blade of his penknife, raised the dog's head upon his knee, and examined a whitish spot terribly swollen round, upon the dog's black nose.

"Mind he don't bite yer," said Pete, in a tone full of caution.

Tom looked at him sharply. "He has got some good in him after all," he thought.

"That's where the adder bit him," continued Pete. "I was bit once in the leg, and my! it was bad for days. Mind--he'll bite."

"No, he won't," said Tom firmly. "Poor old fellow, then. It's to do it good."