“That letting the fire out.”
“Why do you say that?”
“A guilty conscience needs no accuser. He’s horribly uncomfortable for fear uncle should speak to him about it.”
“Yes, but he needn’t be afraid; we shan’t say anything. He has been punished enough.”
It was still dark, and Dean was sleeping heavily after rather an uneasy night. It had been a long time before he could get to sleep, and then his dreams were tinged with a nightmare-like feeling of being forced to go on journeying through hundreds of miles of forest where the tall trunks of the trees were so crowded together that he could hardly force his way between them; and when utterly breathless and exhausted he lay down to rest he could not enjoy that rest for the trouble he had to go through with the little thin, weird, sickly looking black, who had got hold of his toe and kept on pulling at it to make him get up and come to dress his wound.
“You must wait till the doctor comes,” he muttered. “You must wait till the doctor comes,” he muttered again, “and—who’s that? What is it?” he exclaimed, quite aloud.
“What’s the matter with you?” cried Mark, who had been roused by his cry.
“Let go of my toe, and I will tell you,” cried Dean angrily, and he tried to draw it up, but only to suffer a sharp jerk.
“Bother your old toe!” said Mark drowsily. “What’s the matter?”
“Now, none of your silly games,” cried Dean, making a vain effort to kick. “Be quiet, or you will wake uncle and the doctor directly.”