midday
Also I shook the old fellow 's hand and thanked him , which seemed to please him very much , for he muttered something to the effect that it was nothing , since if I had died he would have died too , and therefore he was thinking of himself , not of me . Also two big tears trickled down his snub nose , but these may have been produced by the brandy . Well , we were the victors and elated as may be imagined , for we knew that the few slavers who had escaped would not attack us again . Our first thought was for food , for it was now past midday and we were starving . But dinner presupposed a cook , which reminded us of Sammy . Stephen , who was in such a state of jubilation that he danced rather than walked , the helmet with a bullet-hole through it stuck ludicrously upon the back of his head , started to look for him , and presently called to me in an alarmed voice . I went to the back of the camp and , staring into a hole like a small grave , that had been hollowed behind a solitary thorn tree , at the bottom of which lay a huddled heap , I found him .