is comrade and whispered, "Now then: off!"

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT.

"HEAR THAT?"

It was still dark, but there were faint suggestions of the coming day
when Pen began to creep in the direction of a black patch which he felt
must be forest.

This promised shelter; but he had first to thread his way amongst the
wounded who lay sleeping around, and his difficulty was to avoid
touching them, for they apparently lay thickest in the direction he had
chosen.

Before he was aware of what he was doing he had laid his inert right
hand upon an outstretched arm, which was drawn back with a sharp wince,
and its owner uttered a groan. Bearing to the left and whispering to
Punch to take care, Pen crept on, to find himself almost in contact with
another sufferer, who said something incoherently; and then a whisper
from Punch checked his companion.

"Come on," said Pen hastily, "or they will give the alarm."

"Not they, poor chaps! They are too bad. That sentry isn't coming, is
he?"

Pen glanced in the man's direction, but he was not visible, for some low
bushes intervened.

"I can't see him," said Pen.

"Then look here, comrade; now's our time. It's all fair in war. Every
man for himself."

"What do you mean? Don't stop to talk, but come on."

"All right; but just this," came back in a whisper. "They can't help
themselves, and won't take any notice whatever we do, unless they think
we are going to kill them. Help yourself, comrade, the same as I do."

Pen hesitated for a moment. Then, as he saw Punch busily taking
possession of musket and cartouche-belt, he followed his example.

"It's for life, perhaps," he thought.

He had no difficulty in furnishing himself with the required arms from a
pile, and that too without any of the wounded seeming to pay the
slightest attention.

"Ready?" whispered Punch. "Got a full box?"

"Yes," was the answer.

"Sling your musket then. Look sharp, for it's getting light fast."

Directly after the two lads were crawling onward painfully upon hands
and knees, for every yard sent a pang through Pen's wrists, and he
thoroughly appreciated his comrade's advice, for there were moments when
he felt that had he been carrying the musket he would certainly have
left it behind.

He did not breathe freely till he had entered the dark patch of
woodland, where it was fairly open, and they had pressed on but a short
distance in the direction of the mountain, which high up began