I don't blame
her, though some little explanation might not come amiss: but if she
has any need of help, you must admit that she dissembles it pretty
thoroughly."
Nat would not listen. "You did not see? You did not see?--And yet
you know her language and have talked with her! Whereas I--O blind!"
he broke out passionately, "blind that you could not see!"
A fit of coughing seized and shook him, and as I eased him back upon
his fern pillow, blood came away upon the handkerchief I held to his
lips.
"Damn her!" I swore viciously. "Let her need help if she will, and
let her ask me for it! She has tried her best to kill you; and
what's more, she'll succeed if you don't lie still as I order.
Help? Oh yes, I'll help her--when I have helped _you!_"
He moved his head feebly, as if to shake it: but lay quiet, panting,
with closed eyes: and so, the effusion of blood having ceased, I left
him and fell to work like a negro slave.
By the angle of the hut there stood a pigs' trough of granite,
roughly hewn and hollowed, and among the tools within I found a leaky
wooden bucket which, by daubing it with mud from the brink of the
stream, I contrived to make passably watertight.
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