The lieutenant stared.
“Is this some trick?” he said, excitedly; “a plan to keep me quiet?—because if so, Belton, it is a mistake. It makes me anxious about the captain’s plans.”
“Don’t be anxious, Mr Dallas. I did not like to tell you at first, for fear it should trouble you. Don’t you understand that you have been lying here for many days and nights, quite off your head?”
“No!”
“And we thought you would die; but—but—” cried Belton, in a choking voice, “you are getting better, and know me now.”
The lieutenant lay with his eyes closed and his lips moving for some minutes before he spoke again, and then his voice was very husky.
“No, my boy,” he said, “I did not understand that. But it is quite natural; I could not have been so weak without. Tell me now, though, what has been done.”
“Everything, sir. The guns are mounted; there are good platforms; we have built rough covering walls and mounted a flagstaff. Everything that Strake, Mr Roylance, and I could think of has been done.”
“But the captain—did he send the surgeon ashore, and some one else to take command here?”
“No,” said Sydney, and he explained their position.