"Ah, you have a scratch I see!" said the older man; but he spoke in so strange a voice, that Bruce looked up from his own torn coat and slightly bleeding arm to see what ailed his companion.
"What's up, Uncle Ben?" he said. "Are you feeling bad? Why, you're never hit, are you?"
"Just a bit," gasped the old fellow—"here in the side. The blade of the thing's in me now. O Lord, the pain of it. I'll lie down awhile, that may make me better."
"O Uncle Ben, I'm so sorry. What can I do? Is it very bad?" cried poor Bruce weakly. He felt utterly helpless and frightened.
"I may be all right presently," said Uncle Ben. "Just give me a hand while I lie down. Oh! so, that's it; now I shall soon be better." And as though to prove how much better he felt for the change of position, the wounded man then and there fainted away.
Then Bruce, in his utter helplessness and misery, began to think how vain a thing is self-confidence and the pride of mere animal courage in an inexperienced lad of fifteen years. He had been ready and anxious to undertake the dangerous enterprise all by himself. What if he had been allowed to do so?
Well, he would probably have fallen into the hands of the enemy within half-an-hour of the start; if he had escaped the first danger, he would, maybe, have died of terror when within a stone's throw of the roaring lion. Again, he might have lost his way when, in the darkness, he missed the track; and now again, but for Uncle Ben's experience and alertness, he would assuredly have been caught and murdered by the Matabeles.
Sitting, helpless and miserable, over his unconscious companion, Bruce quickly realised all this, and with the realisation came a flood of tears, the first he had shed for many a day, and wrung from him now, not by fear, but by the sense of helplessness in this crisis.
What ought he to do—what could he do? Leave this poor wounded old man to recover consciousness or to die, or to fall, maybe, into the hands of a third band of rebel niggers, to be mutilated in their barbarous fashion before the breath was out of his body; to leave him lying here, and hasten up to Thomson's farm in order to warn the family? He could find the way from here easily enough. Or should he let the farm people take care of themselves, and attend to the duty which lay to his hand; namely, to keep faithful watch and ward over his wounded companion until day at any rate, when he might settle him comfortably somewhere under cover, and proceed upon his journey?