“Buck—Dan Mann,” thought Mark, for he recognised the voices; but he could not make out why it was he was lying there, nor whose father it was somebody had been calling to.
He tried to think, but the more he tried to make out what it all meant the greater grew the confusion, and at last he felt too weary to try, or the power to continue the effort failed, for he lay quite still in a stupor.
When his senses began to return again the sun had attacked—or so it seemed—his other side. There was a peculiar gnawing in his shoulder, and now and then a stinging pain as from a red hot ray, and while he was trying to puzzle it out, a hand was gently laid upon his forehead, where his head was most charged with pain, and he made a feeble effort to turn where he lay upon his back.
“Who’s that?” he said.
“Oh, Mark! Mark!” came in a familiar voice; and that voice seemed to give back the power to think.
“You, Dean! What does it all mean?”
“Oh, don’t you know?”
Mark was silent, for like a flash came the recollection of what had passed—his going to seek his cousin, his sitting asleep, and the big Illaka standing close by in possession of the watcher’s rifle, doing the duty that had been neglected.
“I was beginning to be afraid that I should never hear you speak again, and you mustn’t speak much, I’m sure, while you are so dreadfully weak. But I must talk to you a little. You do feel a little better now?”
“Better? No.”