“Only a minute or so. Did I faint?”
“I suppose so,” said Mark roughly. “Just like a great girl.”
“Yes: very weak of me,” said Ralph quietly.
“Yes, very,” said Mark. “The brutes tied you too tightly. Try if you can walk now. Get down by the river, and bathe them a bit.”
He stood up and thrust his hands behind him, looking at his young enemy scornfully; but the scarlet flush was in his face still, and would make him look as if he were ashamed of what he had been caught doing.
Ralph sat up, and struggled painfully to his feet, turning hot and faint again; but he made a brave effort to be firm, and took a step or two and then stopped, Mark making no effort to assist him. Then stifling a cry of pain, he took another step or two and tottered, when Mark caught his arm.
“You’re shamming,” he cried angrily.
Ralph’s brow wrinkled, and he looked down at his bare legs and feet, raising one a little, painfully, to draw attention to the terribly swollen state of his ankles and knees.
“Shamming!” he said quietly. “Am I? Well, they are not.”
Ralph held out first one leg, and then the other, before seating himself again, drawing his hose from his belt, and trying to draw them on; but at the end of a minute the pain from his swollen wrists forced him to give up the task, and he slowly replaced the hose in his belt.