“Lion? Come upon? Did—did you speak to me?” said Dyke thickly.
“Speak to you? of course. Why, you foolish, careless fellow, what was the matter? Afraid to stay by the game?”
Dyke looked at him drowsily, striving to catch all that had been said, but only partially grasping the meaning.
“Don’t know—what you mean,” he said thickly.
“I mean it was very cowardly of you to forsake your charge, boy,” said Emson sternly. “It’s vital for us to save that meat, and I trusted you to watch it. Now you’ve come away, and it will be horribly mauled by the jackals; perhaps we shall find half a hundred vultures feeding upon it when we get there. Hang it, Dyke! you might have stayed till I came back.”
Dyke was too much confused to make any reply. Utterly exhausted as he had been, his deep sleep seemed to still hold him, and he sat gazing vacantly at his brother, who added in a tone full of contempt:
“There, don’t stare at me in that idiotic way. Come along; let’s try and save something. Look sharp! One of us must ride on, or we shall not find it before it’s dark.”
Dyke rode beside him in silence, for Breezy eagerly joined his stable companion, and in a short time they were up to, and then passed Jack with his plodding oxen, which were drawing a rough sledge, something similar to that which a farmer at home uses for the conveyance of a plough from field to field.
The angry look soon passed away from Emson’s face, and he turned to Dyke.
“There, look up, old chap,” he said; “don’t pull a phiz like that.”