Mind how you go to him.

I went just now and he began hitting at my legs with his waddy, and then he poked at Gyp with his spear for going up to smell him." "He won't hurt me," I said sadly; and as another doleful cry came from among the bushes, I led the way to where the poor fellow lay, horribly swollen and writhing in agony.
Two of the blacks were watching him, and from what we could make out it seemed that Jimmy had alarmed them by his restlessness, and that they had fetched him back when he ran some distance and fell, and laid him where he now was, in too much agony to stir.
"What is the matter with him, doctor ?" I said excitedly, as I went down on one knee and took the poor fellow's hand, which he grasped convulsively, and laid flat directly upon his chest--at least that is to say, nearly.
"I hardly know yet, my lad," said the doctor.

"Perhaps he has eaten some poisonous berry.

You know how he tastes every wild fruit we pass." "And will it--will it--" I could say no more, for something seemed to choke my voice, and I looked up imploringly in the doctor's eyes.
"Oh! no, Joe, my lad," he said kindly, "not so bad as that." "Jimmy bad as that--Jimmy bad as that," moaned the poor fellow; and as just then Jack Penny threw some light twigs upon the fire, the blaze showed me the swollen and distorted countenance of my poor companion, and a strange chill of apprehension came over me.
We watched by him all night, but he grew worse towards morning, and at last he lay apparently stupefied, free from pain, but as if the berry, or whatever it was that he had swallowed, had rendered him insensible.
Of course, continuing our journey was out of the question, so all we could do was to make the rough brushwood pallet of the sufferer more comfortable by spreading over it a blanket, and I did little else but watch by it all the day.
I felt hurt two or three times by the rough, unfeeling manner in which the doctor behaved towards the black, and I could not help thinking that if Jimmy had been a white man the treatment would have been different.
This worried me a good deal, for it seemed so different to the doctor's customary way; but I took comfort from the fact that poor Jimmy was as insensible to pain as he was to kindness, and in this state of misery I hardly left him all day.
Towards evening the doctor, who had spent the time overhauling and cleaning our guns and pistols, came to me and insisted upon my going to Jack Penny, who had just got a good meal ready.
"But I am not a bit hungry, doctor," I cried.
"Then go and eat against you are," he said.

"Lay in a moderate store, and don't," he added meaningly, "don't eat more than is good for you." I looked at him wonderingly, and got up without a word, feeling more hurt and annoyed with him than ever, and the more so as he looked at me with a peculiar smile as he twisted a stout cane about in his hands.
"How's Jimmy ?" said Jack Penny.
"Dying," I said sadly, as I took my seat before him.
"Oh! I say, not so bad as that, Joe Carstairs! It takes a lot to kill a fellow like Jimmy.