"I want your heart."
"You have it. The world contains no nobler man than my friend, Newman Chaytor."
"I am well repaid. Now you must rest; you have talked enough."
"No, I will finish first. Hearing sounds outside the tent I called for your assistance. We went out together and were immediately attacked. Were you much hurt, Chaytor?"
"A little," replied Chaytor, modestly. "A scratch or two not worth mentioning."
"It is like you to make light of your own injuries. We pursued the scoundrels through the darkness, but they knew the ground they were travelling, we did not. An uncovered shaft lay in my way, and down I fell. That is all I remember. But I know that my bones would be bleaching there at the present moment if it had not been for you."
"Try to remember a little more," said Chaytor, anxious that not a grain of credit should be lost to him. "I came up to the shaft sorely bruised, and called out to you."
"Yes, yes, it comes back to me. You brought me some brandy--you cheered and comforted me--you rolled the trunk of a tree over the mouth of the shaft--it was half a mile away--and after hours of terrible agony I was brought into the sweet light of day. But for you I should have died. Indeed and indeed, I remember nothing more. You must tell me the rest."
This Chaytor did with an affectation of modesty, but with absolute exaggeration of the services he had rendered, and Basil lay and listened, and his heart went out to the man who had proved so devoted a friend, and had sacrificed so much for his sake.
"My gratitude is yours to my dying day," he said. "No man ever did for another what you have done for me. Give me my clothes."