“Oh, I say,” whispered Punch, in a half-suffocated tone, “my word! Talk about near as a toucher! It’s all right, comrade; but if I had held my breath half a jiffy longer I should have gone off pop. Don’t you call this a game? Hide-and-seek and whoop is nothing to it! Garn with you, you thick-headed old frog-soup eaters! Wait till I get my breath. I want to laugh.—Can’t hear ’em now; can you?”
“No,” said Pen faintly. “Will they come back?”
“Not they,” replied Punch chuckling. “Couldn’t find the way again if they tried. But we shall have to stay here now till it’s dark. It don’t matter. I want to cool down and get my wind. I say, though, catch your foot on a stone?”
“No,” replied Pen, breathing hard.
“Thought you did. You did go down—quelch! What you breathing like that for? You did get out of breath! Turn over on your back. There’s nobody to see us now. I say, isn’t it nice and shady! Talk about a hiding-place! Look at the beautiful great, long green leaves. Hooray! Chestnuts. We have dropped just into the right place for foraging. Wait a bit and we will creep right into the forest and make a little fire, and have a roast. What? Oh, it’s all right. They have gone straight on and can’t hear me. Here! I say: why, comrade, you did hurt yourself when you went down. Here, what is it? Oh, I am sorry! Ain’t broke anything, have you?”
“My leg, Punch—my leg,” said Pen faintly.
“Broke your leg, comrade?” cried the boy.
“No, no,” said Pen faintly; “not so bad as that. One of the bullets, I think, scraped my leg when they fired.”
“Shot!” cried Punch in an excited voice full of agony. “Oh, comrade, not you! Don’t say that!”
The lad talked fast, but he was acting all the time. Leaving his musket amongst the leaves, he had crept to Pen’s side, and was eagerly examining his comrade’s now helpless leg.