I think that it was pure weakness, rather than fever, that kept me unconscious so long; for I gather, from the pantomime of the trooper, that I must have been nearly a fortnight unconscious." "Yes, you were certainly so when I came the first time, Harry; but I think, perhaps, on the whole, it is lucky that you were.

You would probably have had a great deal more fever, if you had not been so very weak; and if you had escaped that, and had gone on well, you might have been sent off to Ava before I could get all the arrangements made for your escape." "Tell me all about it," Harry said.

"It seems to me wonderful how you managed it." Stanley told him the whole story.

By the time that he had finished, the stores had all been taken upstairs; and the fire most carefully extinguished, as the smoke would at once have betrayed them.

The cross pieces of the litter had been taken off, to allow Harry to be carried in through the door, and he was now lifted.