“All right; but who’s to heave to with his arms and legs all tied together behind him like a market calf?”
“Well, it arn’t worse for you, messmate, than it is for me. I don’t like it a bit, and it’s all very well to call a fellow’s arms his feelers, but there arn’t a bit of feel left in mine.”
“No,” said Buck, “and I don’t feel as if I’d got any. Just look and see.”
“Oh, they are all right, messmate. I did think of setting to and gnawing through them canes last night; but they would only have tied them up again, and tighter too.”
Buck nodded, giving his companion in misfortune a friendly look, and as he was about to approach closer to Mark, he stopped to whisper, “I don’t know what to say, mate, for whenever I look at the poor plucky chap and think about all he’s gone through, I feel as if I should like to sit down and howl. But there, that will do. I have thought on it now.”
The next minute, after making a quiet approach so as not to draw the attention of the blacks who were driving them, as he said, “like a span o’ oxen,” Buck was alongside of the two boys.
“Say, Mr Mark,” he said, “don’t that there big kopje put you in mind of going up and finding that there cave?”
Mark started, for his thoughts had a far different trend, and he shook his head.
“I’ve been a-thinking of it, sir, ever since it come into sight. ’Member finding that there walking mummy as Dan said was such an old ’un?”
Mark shook his head.