ng, his hand on his waddy and his eyes
wandering in search of danger.

This being absent, his next idea was regarding food.

"Much hungry," he said, "want mutton, want damper, want eatums."

The rest were aroused, and, water being close at hand in a little
stream, we soon had our simple store of food brought out and made a
refreshing meal, of which my father, as he lay, partook mechanically,
but without a word.

The doctor then bathed and dressed his ankles, which were in a fearfully
swollen and injured state. Like Mr Francis, he seemed as if his long
captivity had made him think like the savages among whom he had been;
while the terrible mental anxiety he had suffered along with his bodily
anguish had resulted in complete prostration. He ate what was given to
him or drank with his eyes closed, and when he opened them once or twice
it was not to let them wander round upon us who attended to him, but to
gaze straight up in a vague manner and mutter a few of the native words
before sinking back into a stupor-like sleep.

I gazed at the doctor with my misery speaking in my eyes, for it was so
different a meeting from that which I had imagined. There was no
delight, no anguished tears, no pressing to a loving father's heart. We
had found him a mere hopeless wreck, apparently, like Mr Francis, and
the pain I suffered seemed more than I could bear.

"Patience!" the doctor said to me, with a smile. "Yes, I know what you
want to ask me. Let's wait and see. He was dying slowly, Joe, and we
have come in time to save his life."

"You are sure?" I said.

"No," he answered, "not sure, but I shall hope. Now let's get on again
till dark, and then we'll have a good rest in the safest place we can
find."

In the exertion and toil that followed I found some relief. My
interest, too, was excited by seeing how much Mr Francis seemed to
change hour by hour, and how well he knew the country which he led us
through.

He found for us a capital resting-place in a rocky gorge, where, unless
tracked step by step, there was no fear of our being surprised. Here
there was water and fruit, and, short a distance as we had come, the
darkness made it necessary that we should wait for day.

Then followed days and weeks of slow travel through a beautiful country,
always south and west. We did not go many miles some days, for the
burden we carried made our passage very slow. Sometimes, too, our black
scouts came back to announce