“Dick, I’m doing nothing,” said Murray despairingly. “Be quiet, or you’ll betray us to the enemy.”
“Hang the enemy! Who cares for the enemy? I’m not going to run away from a set of woolly-headed niggers. Let’s fight them and have done with it.”
“Say, Mr Murray, sir, we’ve got in a hole this time. Arn’t you ’most as bad as me?”
“Worse, Tom—worse!” groaned Murray.
“Oh, you couldn’t be worse, sir,” said the man hastily; “but you can’t tell me which way to go, can you?”
“No, Tom; the darkness seems to have quite confused me, and if I tell you to make a start we’re just as likely to run upon the enemy as to go after Mr Anderson.”
“That’s so, sir; and that arn’t the worst of it.”
“There can be no worse, Tom,” said Murray despondently.
“Oh yes, sir, there can, for you see it arn’t you and me alone to look after one another; we’ve each got a messmate on our hands, for I s’pose it wouldn’t be right for you to leave Mr Roberts to shift for hisself, no more than it would for me to leave Billy Titely.”
“Of course not, poor fellows; we must stand by them to the last.”