“I don’t know, sir. I suppose it was all due to the excitement and being fagged out with what we’d gone through in that black hole.”
“Black hole!” cried Roby. “You deserve the Black Hole yourself, sergeant.”
“Yes, sir. I thought he answered, but the poor fellow must have lost his way somehow, and have got left behind.”
“It’s horrible,” cried Roby. “I don’t know what’s to be done.”
“Go in search of the poor fellow at once. It’s enough to send a man out of his mind,” broke in Lennox impatiently.
“I did not ask you for your opinion, Mr Lennox,” said the captain coldly.—“Here, James, come with me to the colonel at once.”
“Yes, sir,” said the sergeant, and he followed his superior.
“What nonsense!” cried Dickenson. “Here, Drew, old man, let’s go on up to the hole at once with half-a-dozen men and lanterns.”
“That’s what I wanted to do,” said Lennox bitterly; “but I suppose it would be going against discipline.”
“Going against your grandmother! Hesitate, when the poor fellow may be dying of fright? He is rather a chicken-hearted sort of a customer.”