"What, are you lost, or run away like me?" he asked. "Have you been treated ill, eh?"
Jack was now thoroughly awake, and crept out of his shelter on to the soft sand, which almost gave way under his feet.
The dog continued whining and jumping on him, and seemed to want to show him the way to some place.
"What do ye want, eh? I can't make you out," Jack said; but in the light of the strengthening dawn which was breaking over the sea he saw a dark mass of something at some distance on the sand, and towards this the dog was evidently trying to guide him.
There was not a creature to be seen on the level strand, and no sound but the gentle murmur of the tide just turning. Presently, however, another sound made Jack pause and listen.
The dog heard it also, and grew more and more frantic in his efforts to lead Jack on.
When he got near the dark mass, Jack found it was the figure of a man, and that the sounds came from him, for he was groaning and crying as if in great pain. The dog ran to him, and leaping on his prostrate figure, and then back again to Jack, showed that the place to which he had to bring him was reached. As plainly as a dog could speak, he was saying, "Help my master."
Jack bent down over the man, and said—
"What's the matter? Are you hurt?"
"Yes, I've sprained my leg; and if I don't get to the quay by four o'clock I am ruined. I'm mate of the Galatea. Look alive and help me to the ship; it's all right when I'm there, for the captain is a jolly fellow—but oh, this leg!—all along of my catching my foot in a net. Toby here and I were coming along the beach from my old step-mother's, over t'other side of the Monument, and I fell, and must have twisted my foot as I fell on that big stone. Now, I say, will you help me to limp to the quay? Doubt if I can do it, but I'll try all the same."