By degrees he recognised the sound as being that of a pen, and knew that some one was writing, and just as he had arrived at this conclusion, there was the faint scrape of a chair, a clinking noise such as might be made by the hilt of a sword against a breastplate, and directly after a sun-browned, anxious face was gazing earnestly into his.
“Father!” whispered Fred, feebly.
“My dear boy! Thank Heaven!”
The first sentence was uttered aloud—the second breathed softly.
“How is it with you, Fred?”
“Bad, father, bad,” he murmured. “I seem to have no strength left, and—and—and—oh, father,” he gasped, as he clung to the hand which took his, “I did—indeed, I did my best.”
“Why, Fred, my boy, Fred. Don’t—don’t take it so seriously as that. You were overpowered and wounded.”
“Yes, father, but you trusted me with the prisoners, and I allowed myself to be out-manoeuvred, and I have disgraced myself.”
“What! How?”
“And I did try so hard to do my duty. I wish now I had been killed.”