There was a great noise going on, and the darkness was something horrible. This seemed to last for a long time—seemed only, and he began to struggle as if a heavy body was lying on him and pressing him down.
It was like some terrible nightmare, and as he struggled against it he threw out his arms, half fancying that he was fighting to save himself from being suffocated in a flood that was not liquid but solid and hard. Then one hand came in contact with something soft, which he realised to be a human face, and then just a faint ray of understanding flashed through his muddled brain and he knew where he was, and that the face must be his cousin’s.
Then the mental darkness closed in again and he was as confused as ever. The noise went on, and he could not tell what it was till after a short interval another ray of light dawned upon him and he caught at and shook his companion, who was sharing the sacks, and sleeping so hard that Mark’s attempts to rouse him were in vain.
And then speech came, and the boy found himself muttering aloud, though it seemed to be somebody else talking. But now the power to put that and that together to some extent grew stronger.
“Oh, Dean, how you do sleep!” came from somewhere. “Here, wake up!” And he grew a little better, for he felt that his lips were touching his cousin’s warm ear, while now it was another voice that said drowsily, “What’s the matter?”
“Ah! that’s better,” the other voice ejaculated, and he heard it plainly, though it was partially smothered by the awful confusion of strange sounds that came as it were from a distance. “Oh, how dark!”
And he knew now that it was his own voice, for he was rapidly shaking off the strange feeling of mental torpidity.
“Father! Dr Robertson! Are you there?”
His words came back to him as if his face was covered with something thick, while he fully grasped the idea now that the noise that smote his ears was somewhere far away.
“I don’t know what’s the matter,” he muttered. “Am I ill? It can’t be a dream. Here, Dean, wake up!”