“Ah, well, there are no ranks to leave now, Punch, and we shall have plenty of time to tiddle the trout, as you call it, for we shall have to stay here till you get well.”
“I say, don’t talk, please. Want to go to sleep.”
“That’s right,” said Pen cheerfully. “Sleep away, and I won’t bathe your wound till you wake again.”
The boy made no answer, but dropped off at once.
“That’s better,” thought Pen, “and while he sleeps I will see whether I can’t get some of the trout.”
He waited until his companion was breathing heavily, and then he seated himself by the door and began to carefully clean his rifle and accoutrements, which soldierly task at an end, he stood over the sleeping boy a few minutes, and then stepped outside the dark hut to plunge into the sunshine; but, recollecting himself, he stepped in amongst the trees, and keeping close in their shelter moved from spot to spot spending nearly half an hour searching every eminence for signs of danger.
“The coast seems clear,” he said to himself, “and the enemy may have moved on; but I must be careful. I want to join our fellows, of course; but if I’m made prisoner it will be the death of poor Punch, for they are not very careful about prisoners, and—”
Pen stopped short as he held on to the bough of one of the stunted trees growing in the rocky bottom and peered out to sweep the side of the valley where he felt that the mule-track ought to be.
He started back as if the bullet that had been fired from a musket had cut the leaves above his head and stood listening to the roll of echoes which followed the shot. Then there was another, and another, followed by scores, telling him that a sharp skirmish had begun; and after a while he could just make out a faint cloud of smoke above the trees, where the dim vapour was slowly rising.
“Yes,” he said, “that’s where I thought the mule-path must be. But what a height it is up! And what does it mean? Are our fellows coming back and driving the enemy before them, or is it the other way on?”