“Let’s try,” said Bracy, setting his teeth. “Life is sweet, my lad.”
“Even without sugar, sir. Why, bless your ’eart! there’s a lot of it in us both yet, sir. This here’s nothing to what we’ve been and done.”
Wild with excitement now, Gedge fetched the heavy slab of stone, almost as much as he could lift, drew it close up behind Bracy, and placed his arms under the young officer’s shoulders.
“Now, sir,” he said, “you set your teeth just as if the doctor was going to use his knife.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Draw you right back on to this stone, sir. I must hurt you a bit, but I can’t help that.”
“Go on,” said Bracy; and the next moment he was drawn back upon the stone, with no worse suffering than a fit of faintness, for his leg was numb with the cold.
“Right, sir. Now your rifle and mine across your legs. Stop; my poshtin first. May want it again. Got the cartridges handy?”
“Yes.”
“Then I sits here between your legs, sir. Just room, and I can steer and put on the break with my heels. Ready, sir?”