“Grasping at shadows,” he muttered. “Here have I been wasting time over sleep instead of hunting for food.”
Ignorant for the time being of the cause of the wretched feeling of depression which now stole over him, and with no friendly voice at hand to say, “Heart sinking? Despondent? Why, of course you are ready to think anything is about to occur now that you are literally starving!” Pen had accepted the first ill thought that had occurred to him, and this was that his companion had turned worse in the night and was dying.
Bending over the poor fellow once more, he thrust a hand within the breast of his shirt, and his spirits sank lower, for there was no regular throbbing beat in response, for the simple reason that in his hurry and confusion of intellect he had not felt in the right place.
“Oh!” he gasped, and his own voice startled him with its husky, despairing tone, while he bent lower, and it seemed to him that he could not detect the boy’s breath playing upon his cheek.
“Oh, what have I done?” he panted, and catching at the boy’s shoulders he began to draw him up into a sitting position, with some wild idea that this would enable him to regain his breath.
But the next moment he had lowered him back upon the rough pallet, for a cry Punch uttered proved that he was very much alive.
“I say,” he cried, “whatcher doing of? Don’t! You hurt?”
“Oh, Punch,” cried Pen, panting hard now, “how you frightened me!”
“Why, I never did nothink,” cried the boy in an ill-used tone.
“No, no. Lie still. I only thought you were getting worse. You were so still, and I could not hear you breathe.”