“We shall not try to escape; sir,” said the Doctor, quietly; “but that boy—he has been tramping about for hours without food, and is nearly starved.”
“Eh? Poor little chap! Hungry?”
“Yes, sir, dreadfully, and so is Dr Martin.”
“Well, we English don’t starve our prisoners, even if they are French. Wait a bit and I’ll see what I can do,” said the sergeant, with gruff good nature, and he went off, leaving the other prisoners to stare gloomily at the new-comers for a few minutes and then turn their backs to begin talking together, while the Doctor pressed close to his charge and tried to cheer him up.
“It will all come right,” he whispered. “We shall soon be able to send a message to the Captain, and he will have us sent safely away. Are you very hungry now, Phil?”
“Dreadfully,” was the reply. “Do you think the sergeant will be very long?”
“Oh no! He seemed too friendly.”
But the sergeant seemed to Phil as if he had forgotten all about the prisoners, for the time glided slowly on, while weariness began to deaden poor Phil’s hunger pains, and he grew drowsy, nodding off twice, but starting up again when the French prisoners spoke more loudly or a sharp challenge was heard outside.
But the sergeant was a man of his word, and just as Phil was dozing off again, and the lanthorn seemed to be dying out, he suddenly entered the tent with a loaf under his arm and a piece of cold boiled bacon and a knife.
“There you are,” he said, gruffly, “and a nice job I’ve had to get it. Eat away, youngster, and thank your stars you haven’t swallowed musket balls for sugar-plums as you came here. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, old man,” he continued, turning to the Doctor, “for bringing a boy like that amongst all this gunpowder, treason and plot. No, no; I don’t want to hear you talk. Eat your supper. I’ve something else to do.”