"You don't want none?" he said, staring at me with astonishment.
"No: I've got some sandwiches in my pocket, and I shall eat them by and
by."
"Oh, all right!" he said; and, taking his pocket-knife, he cut off the
rabbit's head and held it out to the dog.
"There's your bit," he said. "Be off."
Juno took the hot delicacy rather timorously; but she seemed to give the
donor a grateful look, and then trotted out into the sunshine, and lay
down to crunch the bones.
The fire was nearly out, the fir-wood burning fiercely and quickly away;
but though it was a nuisance to me it seemed to find favour with Shock,
who set to work, like the young savage he was, tearing off and devouring
the rabbit, throwing the bones together, ready for the dog when she
should come back. I felt half disgusted, and yet hungry, so, going to
where I had hung my jacket, I thought I would get out the sandwiches
Mrs Solomon had cut for me; but as I turned round and looked at Shock I
felt that I should enjoy them better if I waited till he had done.
So I leaned against the rough side of the sand-cave, watching him tear
away at the bones, holding a piece in one hand, the remains of the
rabbit in the other.
I remember it all so well--him sitting there with just a faint blue curl
of smoke rising from the embers, and beyond him, seen as it were in a
rugged frame formed by the low entrance of the hole, was the lovely
picture of hill and vale, stretching far as the eye could reach, and all
bright in the sunshine, and with the bare sky beyond.
I was just thinking what a rough-looking object Shock seemed as he sat
there just in the entrance to the hole, and wishing that, now he had a
good situation and was decently clothed, he would become like other
boys, when I saw Juno come slowly towards Shock, wagging her tail and
showing her teeth as if asking for more bones, but she suddenly whisked
round and darted away, as, with a noise like a dull clap of thunder,
something seemed to shut out the scene from the mouth of the hole, I
felt a puff of heat and smoke in my face, and all was darkness.
I stood there as if petrified for a minute, I should think, quite unable
to make out what was the matter, and panting for breath.
Then the thought came like a flash, that a quantity of sand had fallen,
and blocked up the mouth of the cave.
For a moment or two I felt as if I should fall. Then the instinct of
self-preservation moved me to act, and with my hands stretched out
before me I went quietly towards the entrance.