“I don’t care what it looks like so long as we can get through and bring help.”
“The same here.”
“But we ought to steal away to-night,” said Denham.
“No; let’s have Joeboy. Ha!” I said, with a sigh of relief. “I seem to see my way now, and I shall sleep like a top.”
“I’m so relieved, Val, old chap, that I’m half-asleep now. Quite a restful feeling has come over me. Good-night.”
“Good-night,” I replied; and I have some faint recollection of the rays of a lantern beating down and looking red through my eyelids, and then of feeling a soft hand upon my temples. But the next thing I fully realised was that it was a bright, sunny morning, and that Denham was sitting up in his sack-bed.
“How do you feel?” he cried eagerly.
“Like going off as soon as it’s dark.”
“So do I,” he said. “I’m a deal better now. What’s the first thing to do—smuggle some meal to take with us?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Yes, perhaps we’d better take some; and, I say, we must have bandages on our heads as well as the sticking-plaster.”