“Feel very tired, then?”
“Tired, sir? I feel as if—as if—as if—”
“As if you wanted rest and a good breakfast.”
“Rest?—breakfast?” said Sam faintly. “Oh, don’t talk about such things, sir! if it’s only to keep me lingering on for another hour, sir. Mr Frank, I used to grumble sometimes in Wimpole Street about my pantry being dark and made mizzable by the iron bars and the old, yellowish, wobbly glass; but it seems a sort of place now as I’d give anything to get back to—parrydicey, and that sort of thing. Rest—breakfast! There can’t be either of them out here, only sand. Oh, sir, you’re a-laughing. I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to make jokes about the breakfast, and say we’re to have the sand which is there.”
“Wrong, Sam,” replied Frank laughing; “but I’m glad to see that you can think about jokes. There, sit up, man, and look yonder straight ahead. The tents are in sight.”
“Tents? Where?” cried the man, changing his tone. “I can’t see ’em.”
“They are not very plain yet, but there they are.”
“White uns, sir, with flags flying, and that sort of thing? What are they—marquees, or bell-tents like the soldiers have?”
“I don’t suppose they are either, but native tents,” said Frank, shading his eyes again. “They look very low and small, right away on the horizon, and they seem to be brown.”
“On the horizon, sir? Why, that means out at sea, and we sha’n’t be there before night.”