“Try and bear it,” he panted, as he heard the low, hissing breath from the poor fellow’s lips, and felt him quiver and wince. “I know it’s bad,” he added encouragingly, “but it won’t take me long.”
It did not, for in a very few minutes he had reached the rough stone wall, to which he shifted his burden, stood for a few moments panting, and then climbed over, took the sufferer in his arms, and staggered into the waiting shelter, where the next minute Punch was lying insensible upon the bed.
“Ha!” ejaculated Pen as he passed the back of his hand across his streaming forehead.
This suggested another action, but it was the palm of his hand that he laid across his companion’s brow.
“All wet!” he muttered. “He can’t be very feverish for the perspiration to come like that.”
Then he started violently, for a shadow crossed the open door, and he involuntarily threw up one hand to draw his slung rifle from his shoulder, and then his teeth snapped together.
There was no rifle there. It was lying with his cartouche-box right away by the stunted oak, as he mentally called the cork-tree.
The next minute he was breathing freely, for the deep-toned bleat of the goat arose, and he looked out, to see that it was answerable for the shadow.
“Ah, you will have to pay for this,” he muttered, as he started to run to where his weapon lay, his mind full now of thoughts that in his efforts over his comrade had been absent.