“Oh, I thought you would never come!” coughed the unfortunate lad. “You were away so long!”
He was thin and pale, with deep-sunken eyes, which, however, were strangely bright. He was poorly and scantily dressed, and the hand that lay on his bosom seemed so thin that it was almost transparent. One of his eyes had been struck by the fist of the brutish dwarf, and was turning purple. On one cheek there was a great bruise and a slight cut.
Frank’s heart had gone out in sympathy to this unfortunate lad, and he was filled with rage when he thought how brutally the poor boy had been treated.
Merriwell sat down on the edge of the bed, and took that thin, white hand. It felt like a little bundle of bones, and was so cold that it gave Frank a shudder.
“You are very ill,” declared the boy from Yale. “I believe you have been starved.”
“That was one way in which he tried to get rid of us,” said George.
“You are speaking of Bernard Belmont?”
“Yes.”
“He tried to starve you?”
“Yes, and my sister also. Little Milly! You should see her! She is such a sweet girl, and she is so good! I don’t see how he had the heart to torture her.”