“I don’t know what it is, but I feel as if I can’t bear it. Say something.”
“Well, that’s just how I feel, and I want to get over it, but I can’t.”
There was another pause, and then, as if in a rage with himself, Gwyn burst out,—
“We’re not babies just woke up in the dark, and ready to call for our mothers to help us.”
“I called for mine to help me, though you could not hear,” said Joe, simply; and his words sounded so strangely impressive that Gwyn uttered a sound like a gasp.
“What is there to be afraid of?” he cried passionately. “We ought to be savagely angry, and ready to feel that we could half kill that cowardly hound for forsaking us like this. I know what you feel, Joe; that we must hurry back as fast as we can to the foot of the shaft, and shout to them to haul us out.”
“But do you really think Tom Dinass has sneaked away?”
“I’m sure he has, out of spite because he was forced to come; and when we got back he would be one of the first to grin and sneer at us. I want to run back as fast as I can, but you’ll stand by me, won’t you?”
“Of course I will.”
“I know that, old chap. Well, what did we come for?”