“That must be Hector! Hector, Hector, is it you?” shouted Oliver.
“Yes, yes! make haste or I shall tumble back again,” was the answer.
We sprang forward and caught him by the arms; when, all three hauling away, we quickly dragged him out of a large hole into which he had fallen.
“Take care,” he said. “I cannot stand—I sprained my ankle when falling into the hole, and the pain was so great that I believe I must have fainted. When I came to myself, I found that it was perfectly dark, and no sooner had I managed to reach the top of the hole than a whole herd of those wombats came sniffing round me, wondering what strange creature had got among them. I shouldn’t have minded them, had they not tried to bite my hands and compelled me to let go again.”
The wombats, on our appearance, had waddled off, so that they did not interfere with us while we were attending to Hector.
On his trying to use his foot he found that his ankle was not so much injured as he had supposed, and that by supporting himself on our shoulders he could manage to hobble along. He therefore very willingly agreed to try and get back to the camp.
“But what has become of your gun?” I asked; “can you remember where you left it?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” answered Hector; “I had it in my hand when I fell, but when I felt about for it I could nowhere find it.”
We searched for the rifle round the hole and at last came to the conclusion that it must have fallen in.