I Need not recount what passed just then. But few words were spoken,
and there was no time for displays of affection. One black had seen and
pursued Jimmy, and others might be on our track, so that our work was
far from being half done even now.
"Can you walk, sir?" said the doctor sharply.
My poor father raised his face toward the speaker and uttered some
incoherent words.
"No, no; he has been kept bound by the ankles till the use of his feet
has gone," said Mr Francis, who had remained silent up to now.
"Can't walk--Jimmy carry um," said the black in a whisper. "Don't make
noise--hear um black fellow."
"You are tired," said the doctor; "let me take a turn."
Jimmy made no objection, but bore the gun, while the doctor carried my
father slowly and steadily on for some distance; then the black took a
turn and bore him right to the place where our black followers were
waiting, and where Jack Penny was anxiously expecting our return.
"I thought you wasn't coming back," he said as Jimmy set down the
burden; and then in a doleful voice he continued, "I couldn't do that,
my back's so weak."
But Ti-hi and his friends saw our difficulty, and cut down a couple of
long stout bamboos whose tops were soon cleared of leaves and shoots.
Two holes were made in the bottom of a light sack whose contents were
otherwise distributed, the poles thrust through, and my poor father
gently laid upon the sack. Four of us then went to the ends of the
poles, which were placed upon our shoulders, and keeping step as well as
we could, we went slowly and steadily on, Mr Francis taking the lead
and acting as guide.
Our progress was very slow, but we journeyed steadily on hour after
hour, taking advantage of every open part of the forest that was not
likely to show traces of our passage, and obliged blindly to trust to
Mr Francis as to the way.
It was weary work, but no one seemed to mind, each, even Jack Penny,
taking his turn at the end of one of the bamboos; and when at last the
morning broke, and the bright sunshine showed us our haggard faces, we
still kept on, the daylight helping us to make better way till the sun
came down so fiercely that we were obliged to halt in a dense part of
the forest where some huge trees gave us shade.
Mr Francis looked uneasily about, and I caught his anxious gaze
directed so often in different directions that I whispered to the doctor
my fears that he had lost his way.
"Never mind, lad," replied the doctor; "we have the compass. Our way is
south towards the coast--anywhere as long as we get beyond reach of the
blacks. No, don't disturb him, let him sleep."
I was about to draw near and speak to my father, in whose careworn
hollow face I gazed with something approaching fear. His eyes were
closed, and now, for the first time, I could see the ravages that the
long captivity had made in his features; but, mingled with these, there
was a quiet restful look that made me draw back in silence from where
the litter had been laid and join my companions in partaking of such
food as we had.
Watch was set, the doctor choosing the post of guard, and then, lying
anywhere, we all sought for relief from our weariness in sleep.
As for me, one moment I was lying gazing at the long unkempt hair and
head of him I had come to seek, and thinking that I would rest like
that, rising now and then to see and watch with the doctor; the next I
was wandering away in dreams through the forest in search of my father;
and then all was blank till I started up to catch at my gun, for some
one had touched me on the shoulder.
"There is nothing wrong, my lad," said the doctor--"fortunately--for I
have been a bad sentry, and have just awoke to find that I have been
sleeping at my post."
"Sleeping!" I said, still confused from my own deep slumbers.
"Yes," he said; "every one has been asleep from utter exhaustion."