"The most unlucky thing that could have happened!" he cried. "You are lamed for ever so long. I know what a sprain is, for I had one when my horse came down in leaping a ditch. It's worse than breaking a bone. You won't be able for weeks to do more than hop round the room?"
"Not a very wide circle to hop round," observed Walter with a smile.
"No joking matter!" cried Denis impatiently. "How can you make your escape with me if you are utterly lame?"
"Lame or not, I see no way of either of us making our escape," observed Walter.
"But I do—at least I will. Do you think that I am going to wait here like Patience on a monument grinning at Afghans, till a ransom is paid that would make me a beggar?"
Walter was too weary to reply. He felt utterly exhausted by the effects of his fall. The youth fell into a deep sleep which lasted for hours, and awoke, though still in pain, greatly revived and refreshed.
During the sleep of his comrade, how busy had been the thoughts of Dermot Denis, what a struggle had been going on in his mind! Denis was not much given to thinking, except in the way of building castles in the air, or forming ingenious schemes for accomplishing some plan which he had taken into his head. Almost new to him was the exercise of considering whether what he wished to do were right or wrong; but his judgment was forced on that exercise now. Denis had two courses open before him, and the one on which his heart was set would involve an action which his better nature knew to be base—desertion of the faithful and generous friend whom he himself, by his folly and self-will, had drawn into danger.
"Walter is evidently a favourite here; no one would injure him," said Denis to himself, as he strode up and down the narrow space of his prison. "To remain beside him would do him no good. Were I once in India I could take effectual means for his rescue. It is better for him that I should fly."
Thus, by arguing with himself, Denis tried to drown the inward voice of honour—it could scarcely be called conscience—that told him that it would be cruel and base to leave Walter to the fury of savages baulked of their golden prize, and that it was selfishness that prompted the wish to do so. Denis's most effectual argument was the strength of his own desire. What world-wide fame he would acquire by accomplishing so daring a feat as escaping from a den of robbers! What a book of thrilling adventures he would write, which would not only be eagerly read in Britain, Ireland, and India, but would be translated into foreign tongues. The title of "Afghanistan Denis," the traveller who made the wonderful escape from the Eagle's Nest, would be more gratifying to his pride than could be the ribbon of the Bath. Thus reflected Denis, and he had succeeded in almost persuading himself that black was white, before Walter awoke from his sleep.
"How are you, old boy?" inquired Denis.