"Or found our pram! Come on, I want my breakfast."
They stepped out of the cottage, regained the western shore, discovered the pram where they had concealed it, and, having crossed the river unobserved, so far as they knew, laid the craft in its former hiding-place, and returned to camp. Pratt was busy at the paraffin stove.
"What ho!" he exclaimed. "One must feed, even when pain and anguish wring the brow. I made sure the spooks or some one had got you, and after fortifying myself with bacon and eggs I was going up to ask old Crawshay whether an inquest would be necessary. You look very much washed out. Been on the tiles?"
"I'll wring your neck if you don't hand over that frying-pan," said Armstrong.
"Thy necessity is greater than mine. As you know, I'd lick Philip Sidney or any other old paladin in chivalry. Eat, drink, and be merry. There's enough coffee brewed for us all. Make a fair division of the bacon and eggs between you, and I'll fry some more in a brace of shakes. I say, I am jolly glad to see you! I've had the deuce of a time!"
"More pin-pricks?" asked Warrender.
"No. But I'm blessed--or cursed--with a very vivid imagination, as you are aware. I stayed up till daybreak, expecting you back every minute, and when you didn't come I got in a regular stew, saw you tumble from the roof, and your members all disjected over the garden--horrid sight! Saw you knocked on the head, trussed and gagged in the cellar; boated off to France; growing white-haired in a dungeon like that fellow in the Bastille--you know, finger nails a yard long--mice and rats and toads. Toads were the last straw, I saw 'em hopping about, and----"
"That bacon done?" said Armstrong. "How many bottles of ginger-beer did you drink?"
"I am not drunk, most noble Festus. But I say, what did happen?"
"I'd have told you already," said Warrender, "only I couldn't get a word in."