He had bound up the leg, and now brushed away the beads of sweat which the exertion, in his own sorry state, had brought out upon his brow.
"Now, look here, Enderby," he said, "the best thing I can do is to trudge off after our men and get a machine to bring you in. And the sooner I start, the better. You ought to be safe enough here. You're well hidden; the Bulgars' advance won't bring them past this spot, there's no road. But if I lose any time they'll be somewhere in the neighbourhood before a machine could arrive, and then it'll be hopeless. I'll rummage out some food from our wreck, and leave you that and my flask----"
"You'd better take it; you've a long tramp before you, and may come across some advance patrols of the Bulgars for all you know. Besides----"
He paused. Both men pricked up their ears simultaneously. Each looked an anxious inquiry at the other. From somewhere not far away came a rhythmic sound--a succession of strident, scraping sounds--which in a moment they recognised as the creaking of a cart.
Neither man spoke. Burton stole down the gully, and round the shoulder of a hill in the direction of the sound, which grew louder as he went. Apprehensive that his plans for the rescue of his friend were already defeated, he peered cautiously round the corner of rock. He beheld a rough hill-track winding upwards from right to left across his front. Some distance to the right another track ran into the first, skirting a spur from a north-westerly direction. Nothing was visible on either track, but the regular monotonous creaking of the cart was drawing nearer.
Burton drew back behind a rock and waited. Presently, from round one of the innumerable bends and twists in the main track, appeared the great heads of two oxen yoked together; then a woman's form came into view, perched on the forepart of a heavily laden cart; last of all, tramping in the rear, a tall old man, and, by his side, a boy whose head reached scarcely higher than his elbow.
The watcher breathed more freely. It was only a typical refugee party; he had already seen hundreds like it toiling along the southward roads to Salonika. There was nothing to fear here; on the contrary, it suggested a means by which Captain Enderby might be at once removed, without the delay that would be caused by his own going and coming.
The cart was creeping laboriously up towards him. When it was nearly opposite, Burton stepped forth from his hiding-place. His sudden appearance drew signs of momentary alarm. The woman stiffened; the old man whipped out a revolver; the boy ran round in front of the cart, and with a fierce expression, comical on his young face, stood before his mother, drawing from his belt a knife.
Burton threw out his hands and called out that he was an Englishman. But even before he spoke the attitude of hostility had relaxed, the woman had addressed a few words to the old man, and he had already replaced his weapon. They had recognised that the stranger was neither a Bulgar nor a German. Only the boy remained suspicious and alert, stoutly gripping his knife.
The cart had stopped. Burton walked towards it. He had picked up a few words of Greek during the eleven months he had spent in the East, and he explained in that language that he was a friend and an Englishman. Rather to his surprise the old man replied in French.