“Come in, my lad,” said Roberts, stooping to enter the low door, and Gedge’s heart went down to its lowest point as he found himself face to face with Bracy.
“Them two to drop on me!” he thought. “Wouldn’t ha’ keared if it had been the Major.”
The next moment poor Gedge’s heavily plumping heart jumped, as he afterwards expressed it from his boots right up to his throat.
“Gedge,” said Bracy coldly and quietly, “I am going on a very dangerous mission.”
“Oh, sir, please don’t go without me!”
“I have sent for you to say that I have selected you for my companion.”
“Hoo—beg pardon, sir,” cried the lad, turning scarlet.
“No cheering, no nonsense, no boy’s tricks, my lad. This is desperate men’s work. I have chosen you to go with me on a journey of many days, during which we shall suffer terrible hardships.”
“That’s right, sir; used to it ever since I was—”
“Silence, man!” said Bracy sternly. “We shall go with our lives in our hands, and probably never get to our journey’s end; but we shall have to try. Now then, if you feel the slightest qualm, speak out honestly, and I will choose some one else.”