“Aren’t it a bit dark, Master Scar, or be it my eyes?” said Nat, feebly.
“Dark, Nat, quite dark. But you will, I hope, be safe here till we can escape.”
“Right, sir. I’ll do what you tell me, for I feel just like a big babby now with no legs, and my head all of a wobble, ’cause there’s no bone in the neck. Yes, sir, thank ye, sir. Ease my head down gently. That’s it. That’s it. That’s it. That’s it. Ah!” the poor fellow kept on repeating to himself, and ended with a low sigh of relief; and when spoken to again there was no reply.
Scarlett’s heart seemed to cease beating, and then it gave a leap.
Had he done wrong in getting the poor fellow down there, exhausted as he was? How did he know but that he might have caused the wounds to bleed again?
There was consolation directly after, for he could hear Nat’s calm, regular breathing, and, satisfied and relieved, Scarlett stepped now to his father’s side to touch him, but found that he too was still sleeping calmly, while for the present it seemed that his duty was to keep guard.
He seated himself on the stone floor, with his back in one of the angles, and listened for a time to the regular breathing; then his ravenous hunger made itself known to such an extent that, after comforting himself with the promise that he would get food that night, he took out and broke a piece off the bread cake, put it back, thought that those by him might require it, and determined to fight down his hunger.
Hunger won the day.
Scarlett made a brave fight, but he was weak; and, try how he would, his hand kept on going to the pocket wallet, and at last he did what was quite necessary under the circumstances—he ate heartily and well; and then, with a guilty feeling; troubling him, he yielded to a second kindly enemy.
The breathing of his two patients was as regular as clockwork, and the silence and darkness seemed to increase, with the result that they acted in a strangely lulling way, and with such potency that, after a time, Scarlett started up, and stared about him at the dense blackness around.