“Too late for roll-call. Bad example to the rank and file,” murmured the Captain, with some remnant of a camp-dream lingering in his mind.
Mr. Berners shook him roughly, while Sybil dipped up a double handful of water from a little spring at their feet, and threw it up into his face.
This fairly aroused him.
“Whew-ew! Phiz! What’s that for? What the demon’s all this? What’s the matter?” he exclaimed, sneezing, coughing, and sputtering through the water that Sybil had flung into his face.
“What’s all this?” exclaimed Lyon Berners, echoing his question. “It is that we are all robbed and murdered, and carried into captivity, for all I know,” he added, smiling, as he could not fail to do, at the droll figure cut by his friend.
“How the deuce came I here?” demanded Pendleton, glaring around with his mouth and eyes wide open. “Is this enchantment?”
“Something very like it, Pendleton. But come, man, this is no laughing matter. It is very serious. Therefore rouse yourself and collect your faculties. You will need them all, I assure you,” gravely replied Lyon Berners.
“But—how in thunder, came I here?” again demanded the Captain, shivering and staring around him.
“We can not tell. My wife found you here about half an hour ago. You are supposed to have been overcome by drowsiness, while on your way to your horse, and to have sunk down here and slept from that time to this—some sixteen hours.”
“Good—! I remember taking leave of you both, after our lively supper of last evening, and starting for the thicket, and giving way just here to an irresistible feeling of drowsiness, and sinking down with the dreamy idea that I would not go to sleep, but would soon arise and pursue my journey. And I have lain here all night!” he exclaimed in astonishment.