“Nonsense!” said the colonel shortly. “That great bird startled him. Forward again; the men are going on.—Perry, my boy, you must give that Indian lad a knife, or something as a present: he saved your life.”
“Yes, father,” said the boy, looking dazed and strange. “I—I’m better now.”
“Yes, of course you are. Pish! we mustn’t dwell upon every slip we have. There, think no more about it,” he continued, as he noticed the boy’s blank, pale face. “Go on, and mount your mule.”
“I think I would rather walk,” said Perry.
“Walk, then,” said the colonel shortly, and he went on and mounted his mule.
“Quick! mano—hand!” buzzed in Perry’s ear, and at the same time he seemed to hear the booming roar of the torrent beneath his feet, and the rush of the huge bird’s wings just above his head—“Quick! mano—hand!”
“I say, Master Perry, sir, don’t look that how,” said John Manning in a low voice; “you’re as white as taller candle. You’re all right now.”
“Yes,” said Perry, trying hard to recover his natural balance. “I’m all right now.”
“You’ve made the colonel look as black as thunder, and it wasn’t our fault. They’ve no business to have such bridges in a Christian country. But it was enough to scare any one, my lad. I thought that there bird meant to have you.”
“That was fancy,” said Perry hastily. “I ought to have known better.”