“Dummy!”
“Yes, Master Mark, I was took with ’em as soon as I got as far as the powder store. It all come at once.”
“What do you mean?”
Dummy was perfectly silent, but not perfectly still; for as he stared straight in Mark’s face in a peculiarly stolid way, he kept on swinging and jerking his legs till he seemed as if some one was pulling a string to make him act like a jumping toy.
“Look here, stupid-head,” cried Mark angrily, but only to break into a laugh, half of amusement, half of vexatious contempt, “are you going mad?”
“I dunno, Master Mark. Perhaps I am. There’s something keeps on buzzing in my head like a wheel going round.”
“You’ve been out too much in the sun.”
“No, I aren’t. I’ve been down the mine in the dark.”
“And got frightened?”
“Not as I knows on, Master Mark. It’s the thinks.”