Bunyip Land Part 57

At the risk of being seen I rose up a little so as to try and get a glimpse of the coming enemy; but though the movement among the bushes was plain enough I only caught one glimpse of a black body, and had I been disposed to shoot it was too quick for me and was gone in an instant.

They were coming nearer, and in an agony of excitement I was thinking of attempting to back away and try to reach the cave, when I felt that I could not get Jack Penny and the black to act with me unless I showed myself, and this meant revealing our position, and there all the time were the enemy steadily making their way right towards us.

"What shall I do?" I said to myself as I realised in a small way what must be the feelings of a general who finds that the battle is going against him. "I must call to Jack Penny."

"_Cooey_!" rang out just then from a little way to my right, and Jimmy looked up from his hiding-place.

"Is Carstairs there?" cried the familiar voice of the doctor, and as with beating heart I sprang up, he came staggering wearily towards me through the clinging bushes.

"My dear boy," he cried, with his voice trembling, "what I have suffered on your account! I thought you were a prisoner."

"No!" I exclaimed, delighted at this turn in our affairs. "Jimmy helped me to escape. I say, you don't think I ran away and deserted you?"

"My dear boy," he cried, "I was afraid that you would think this of me.

But there, thank Heaven you are safe! and though we have not rescued your father we know enough to make success certain."

"I'm afraid not," I said hastily. "The savages have discovered our hiding-place."

"No!"

"Yes; and one of them was approaching it just now when Jack Penny shot him down."

"This is very unfortunate! Where? What! close here?"

I had taken his hand to lead him to the clump of bushes where the poor wretch lay, and on parting the boughs and twigs we both started back in horror.

"My boy, what have you done?" cried the doctor, as I stood speechless there by his side. "We have not so many friends that we could afford to kill them."

But already he was busy, feeling the folly of wasting words, and down upon his knees, to place the head of our friend, the prisoner of the savages, in a more comfortable position before beginning to examine him for his wound.

"Bullet--right through the shoulder!" said the doctor in a short abrupt manner; and as he spoke he rapidly tore up his handkerchief, and plugged and bound the wound, supplementing the handkerchief with a long scarf which he wore round the waist.

"Now, Ti-hi! Jimmy! help me carry him to the cave."

"Jimmy carry um all 'long right way; put um on Jimmy's back!" cried my black companion; and this seeming to be no bad way of carrying the wounded man in such a time of emergency, Jimmy stooped down, exasperating me the while by grinning, as if it was good fun, till the sufferer from our mistake was placed upon his back, when he exclaimed:

"Lot much heavy-heavy! Twice two sheep heavy. Clear de bus.h.!.+"

We hastily drew the boughs aside, and Jimmy steadily descended the steep slope, entered the rivulet, crossed, and then stopped for a moment beneath the overhanging boughs before climbing to the cabin.

"Here, let me help you!" said the doctor, holding out his hand.

"Yes," said Jimmy, drawing his waddy and boomerang from his belt; "hold um tight, um all in black fellow way."

Then, seizing the boughs, he balanced the wounded man carefully, and drew himself steadily up step by step, exhibiting wonderful strength of muscle, till he had climbed to the entrance of the cave, where he bent down and crawled in on hands and knees, waiting till his burden was removed from his back, and then getting up once more to look round smiling.

"Jimmy carry lot o' men like that way!"

We laid the sufferer on one of the beds of twigs that the savages had made for us, and here the doctor set himself to work to more securely bandage his patient's shoulder; Jack Penny looking on, resting upon his gun, and wearing a countenance full of misery.

"There!" said the doctor when he had finished. "I think he will do now.

Two inches lower, Master Penny, and he would have been a dead man."

"I couldn't help it!" drawled Jack Penny. "I thought he was a savage coming to kill us. I'm always doing something. There never was such an unlucky chap as I am!"

"Oh, you meant what you did for the best!" said the doctor, laying his hand on Jack Penny's shoulder.

"What did he want to look like a savage for?" grumbled Jack. "Who was going to know that any one dressed up--no, I mean dressed down--like that was an Englishman?"

"It was an unfortunate mistake, Penny; you must be more careful if you mean to handle a gun."

"Here, take it away!" said Jack Penny bitterly. "I won't fire it off again."

"I was very nearly making the same mistake," I said, out of compa.s.sion for Jack Penny--he seemed so much distressed. "I had you and Ti-hi covered in turn as you came up, doctor."

"Then I'm glad you did not fire!" he said. "There, keep your piece, Penny; we may want its help. As for our friend here, he has a painful wound, but I don't think any evil will result from it. Hist, he is coming to!"

Our conversation had been carried on in a whisper, and we now stopped short and watched the doctor's patient in the dim twilight of the cavern, as he unclosed his eyes and stared first up at the ceiling and then about him, till his eyes rested upon us, when he smiled.

"Am I much hurt?" he said, in a low calm voice.

"Oh, no!" said the doctor. "A bullet wound--not a dangerous one at all."

To my astonishment he went on talking quite calmly, and without any of the dazed look and the strange habit of forgetting his own tongue to continue in that of the people among whom he had been a prisoner for so long.

"I thought I should find you here," he said; "and I came on, thinking that perhaps I could help you."

"Help us! yes, of course you can! You shall help us to get Mr Carstairs away!"

"Poor fellow; yes!" he said softly, and in so kindly a way that I crept closer and took his hand. "We tried several times to escape, but they overtook us, and treated us so hard that of late we had grown resigned to our fate."

I exchanged glances with the doctor, who signed to me to be silent.

"It was a very hard one--very hard!" the wounded man continued, and then he stopped short, looking straight before him at the forest, seen through the opening of the cave.

By degrees his eyelids dropped, were raised again, and then fell, and he seemed to glide into a heavy sleep.

The doctor motioned us to keep away, and we all went to the mouth of the cave, to sit down and talk over the night's adventure, the conversation changing at times to a discussion of our friend's mental affection.

"The shock of the wound has affected his head beneficially, it seems,"

the doctor said at last. "Whether it will last I cannot say."

At least it seemed to me that the doctor was saying those or similar words from out of a mist, and then all was silent.

The fact was that I had been out all night, exerting myself tremendously, and I had now fallen heavily asleep.

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN.