!" said Jack Penny bitterly. "I won't fire it off
again."

"I was very nearly making the same mistake," I said, out of compassion
for Jack Penny--he seemed so much distressed. "I had you and Ti-hi
covered in turn as you came up, doctor."

"Then I'm glad you did not fire!" he said. "There, keep your piece,
Penny; we may want its help. As for our friend here, he has a painful
wound, but I don't think any evil will result from it. Hist, he is
coming to!"

Our conversation had been carried on in a whisper, and we now stopped
short and watched the doctor's patient in the dim twilight of the
cavern, as he unclosed his eyes and stared first up at the ceiling and
then about him, till his eyes rested upon us, when he smiled.

"Am I much hurt?" he said, in a low calm voice.

"Oh, no!" said the doctor. "A bullet wound--not a dangerous one at
all."

To my astonishment he went on talking quite calmly, and without any of
the dazed look and the strange habit of forgetting his own tongue to
continue in that of the people among whom he had been a prisoner for so
long.

"I thought I should find you here," he said; "and I came on, thinking
that perhaps I could help you."

"Help us! yes, of course you can! You shall help us to get Mr
Carstairs away!"

"Poor fellow; yes!" he said softly, and in so kindly a way that I crept
closer and took his hand. "We tried several times to escape, but they
overtook us, and treated us so hard that of late we had grown resigned
to our fate."

I exchanged glances with the doctor, who signed to me to be silent.

"It was a very hard one--very hard!" the wounded man continued, and then
he stopped short, looking straight before him at the forest, seen
through the opening of the cave.

By degrees his eyelids dropped, were raised again, and then fell, and he
seemed to glide into a heavy sleep.

The doctor motioned us to keep away, and we all went to the mouth of the
cave, to sit down and talk over the night's adventure, the conversation
changing at times to a discussion of our friend's mental affection.

"The shock of the wound has affected his head beneficially, it seems,"
the doctor said at last. "Whether it will last I cannot say."

At least it seemed to me that the doctor was saying those or similar
words from out of a mist, and then all was silent.

The fact was that I had been out all night, exerting myself
tremendously, and I had now fallen heavily asleep.

CHAPTER THIRTY