Martin Conisby

It was upon the fifth day of our journey that, missing him thus, I turned to wait for him to come up and found him nowhere in sight. Hereupon I hasted back the way I had come and after some while beheld him prone in the dust; he lay outstretched upon his face in the hot glare of the sun, the dog Pluto squatting beside him, and as I approached the desolate figure I knew that he was weeping. So came I running to fall beside him on my knees and lifting that abased head, saw indeed the agony of his tears.

"Oh, Martin--forgive me!" he gasped. "I can crawl no faster--better were I dead, dear lad, than hamper you thus--"

"Rather will I perish!" said I, lifting him in my arms to bear him out of the sun and much grieved to find him a burden so light; and now, sitting 'neath a great tree, I took his head upon my bosom and wiped the tears from his furrowed cheeks and set myself diligently to comfort him, but seeing him so faint and fore-done, I began alternately to berate myself heartily and lament over him so that he must needs presently take to comforting me in turn, vowing himself very well, that it was nought but the heat, that he would be able to go and none the worse in a little, etc. "Besides," said he, "'tis worth such small discomfort to find you so tender of me, Martin. Yet indeed I am stronger than I seem and shall be ready to go on as soon as you will--"

"Nay, sir," said I, mighty determined, "here we bide till the sun moderates; 'tis too hot for the dog even," and I nodded where Pluto lay outstretched and panting, hard by. But now, even as I spoke, the dog lifted his head to snuff the air and, getting up, bolted off among the adjacent undergrowth. I was yet idly wondering at this when suddenly, from somewhere afar in the woods below, came a sound there was no mistaking--the faint, sharp crack of a firearm. In a moment I was on my feet and, with Sir Richard beside me, came where we might look into the green depths below us.

And sure enough, amid this leafy wilderness I saw a glitter that came and went, the which I knew must be armour, and presently made out the forms of men and horses with divers hooded litters and long files of tramping figures.

"Ah!" quoth Sir Richard. "Yon should be the gold-train for Panama or Carthagena, or mayhap Indians being marched to slavery in the mines, poor souls!"