“Set um down come look Mass Joe. Come ’long fas. Gyp take care Jimmy fader till um come back again again.”
As Jimmy spoke he thrust his hand into my pocket for my knife, while I was too much interested in his words to remind him that there was my large sheath-knife in my belt.
“Come ’long,” he said as he set me free, and we were starting when he stopped short: “No; tie black fellow up firs’. No, can’t ’top.”
Before I knew what he meant to do he had given the prostrate black a sharp rap on the head with his waddy.
“Jimmy!” I said; “you’ll kill him!”
“Kill him! No, makum sleep, sleep. Come ’long.”
He went off at a sharp walk and I followed, glancing back anxiously from time to time and listening, till we reached the spot where he had set down his burden, just as the doctor came back, having missed me, and being in dread lest I had lost my way.
I did not speak—I could not, but threw myself on my knees beside the strange, long-haired, thickly-bearded figure seated with its back against a tree, while the doctor drew back as soon as he realised that it was my father the black had saved.