“While you shut up part of the help, and raised expectations in his breast, that would perhaps result in disappointment,” replied the doctor. “We must wait, my lad, wait. The savages are excited and alarmed, and we must come when their suspicions are at rest.”
“What do you mean?” I said. “Do you mean to go back to-night without him?”
“Not if we can get him away,” he said; “but we must not do anything mad or rash.”
“No, no, of course not,” I said despairingly; “but this is horrible: to be so close to him and yet able to do nothing!”
“Be patient, my lad,” he whispered, “and speak lower. We have done wonders. We have come into this unknown wild, and actually have found that the lost man is alive. What is more, we have come, as if led by blind instinct, to the very place where he is a prisoner, and we almost know the hut in which he is confined.”
“Yes, yes. I know all that,” I said; “but it is so hard not to be able to help him now.”
“We are helping him,” said the doctor. “Just think: we have this poor half-dazed fellow to glean some information, and we have a hiding-place near, and—Look out!”
I turned my piece in the direction of the danger, for just then a member of our little expedition, who had been perfectly silent so far, uttered a savage growl and a fierce worrying noise.
Simultaneously there was a burst of shouts and cries, with the sound of blows and the rush of feet through the bush.
For the next few minutes there was so much excitement and confusion that I could hardly tell what happened in the darkness. All I knew was that a strong clutch was laid upon my shoulders, and that I was being dragged backwards, when I heard the dull thud of a blow and I was driven to the ground, with a heavy body lying across me.