“Jack, old man, are you badly hit?” asked Claverton, with a thrill of concern in his voice, bending over him and grasping his hand.
“Infernally,” was the reply in a weak voice; and the poor fellow’s face was bathed in moisture from the agonies he was undergoing.
“Well, cheer up, old chap; we’ll get you out of this, and you’ll live to have the laugh of John Kafir yet.”
“Ping, ping!” A bullet embedded itself in the trunk of the tree, while a second whistled perilously close to the speaker’s ear.
“The devil! There’s some one among those fellows who can shoot. Lie close, every one. There’s fairly good cover here, and we’ll pepper them a few.”
“Hallo, Allen; you there?” said the wounded man. “Shake hands, old chap. You’re a good sort to come down here and look after a fellow.”
Allen looked a little sheepish. He might be a duffer in some respects, but he was not deficient in pluck, and had been one of the first to volunteer in the search.
The place where they stood, or rather crouched, was a ring of bush. Above, rose the great yellow-wood tree, with long, tangled monkey ropes trailing from its boughs. Around, however, all was tolerably open, although the trunks of the large forest trees which overshadowed the spot, shutting out the sunlight, might afford some cover to the foe. And this openness of the surroundings might yet prove the salvation of the devoted group, who stood there hemmed in by relentless and eager foes.
“We’ll hold our own, never fear!” cried Claverton. “We were in a worse fix that day down by the Bashi—you remember, Jack?—when a blast of your old post-horn sent the niggers flying in every direction.”
The wounded man smiled faintly at the reminiscence.