Eric spoke in quite an aggrieved tone, which struck his brother keenly, although he refrained from answering him; but, while expressing his sense of hurt feeling at Fritz not asking his aid, the lad was busily employed in lighting the lamp and examining the injured ankle, which, to his consternation, he found so badly dislocated that the bone protruded. The foot, too, was already swollen to more than twice its size!
“It looks awful,” he said; “and, just think, if it had given way when we were descending the crag you might have tumbled down the precipice and made me brotherless! Why did you not tell me and ask my help?”
“Because,” replied Fritz, with some reason, “my doing so might perhaps have frightened you, causing you to lose your nerve at a moment when the safety of both of us depended on your keeping cool and steady.”
“That might have been so,” said Eric; “but, still, I would have been able to help you more if I had known! However, ‘everything that is, is for the best,’ isn’t that so, brother?”
With this consoling reflection, the sailor lad, under Fritz’s directions, set about bandaging the wounded limb with a long handkerchief dipped in cold water and wrapped round it as tightly as possible.
This surgical operation accomplished, the two then went to bed, pretty well tired with the day’s excursion.
They had had a long chase after the wild goats, in addition to first exploring the tableland above and the exertion of ascending and descending the cliff—which latter was quite an arduous enough enterprise in itself and sufficiently dangerous, as was amply proved by the fact of Fritz’s accident, that might lay him up for some time.
However, the next day, the invalid thought roast kid ample payment for sprained ankle; and he was not sorry for the enforced rest he was obliged to take after the rough exercise he had undergone since landing on the island, having now an opportunity of reading and investigating the little library of books given by Celia Brown to Eric, which he had not yet had the chance of overhauling.
Indeed, Master Fritz had a nice easy time of it; for Eric not only waited on him, but saw to everything that had to be done until he was able to move about again.
“That old billy-goat was bound to do me an injury! I thought so when I first saw him that evening, standing out against the sunset sky over our heads,” said the elder brother to Eric, when he was once more out of doors and felt again like his old self. “Aha, though, I’ve not done with the old rascal yet! Some day, I’ll pay him out, never fear!”