Chapter Forty One.
How Jimmy heard the Bunyip speak, and it all proved to be “Big ’Tuff.”
I Need not recount what passed just then. But few words were spoken, and there was no time for displays of affection. One black had seen and pursued Jimmy, and others might be on our track, so that our work was far from being half done even now.
“Can you walk, sir?” said the doctor sharply.
My poor father raised his face toward the speaker and uttered some incoherent words.
“No, no; he has been kept bound by the ankles till the use of his feet has gone,” said Mr Francis, who had remained silent up to now.
“Can’t walk—Jimmy carry um,” said the black in a whisper. “Don’t make noise—hear um black fellow.”
“You are tired,” said the doctor; “let me take a turn.”
Jimmy made no objection, but bore the gun, while the doctor carried my father slowly and steadily on for some distance; then the black took a turn and bore him right to the place where our black followers were waiting, and where Jack Penny was anxiously expecting our return.
“I thought you wasn’t coming back,” he said as Jimmy set down the burden; and then in a doleful voice he continued, “I couldn’t do that, my back’s so weak.”