Chapter Twenty Seven.
The Search for an Antidote—Can Rory be Dead?—Seth to the Rescue—Seth as Doctor and Nurse.
“I reckon,” said Seth to himself, “that there’ll be just about light enough to find ’em. Good thing now that the moon is full, for they do say that gathered under the full moon their virtue is increased fourfold, and what is more, old Seth believes it. Hullo! it strikes me Rory is in luck. Here they grow as large as life, and twice as natural.”
They were a deal bigger than Seth at all events. Tall and graceful stems with an immensity of leaf, probably a plant belonging to the Solanaceae family.
“I won’t spare you,” continued this curious Yankee trapper.
Nor did he. He quite filled his arms with both stems and leaves, and hastened back to the glade where lay poor Rory, to all appearance dead, and surrounded by his sorrowing friends.
“Clear the course,” cried Seth, “for once in a way, gentlemen; Seth will save the boy if there be a save in him. Carry him along to the lake. Gently with him.”
There was little need of the latter precaution. McBain, hoping against hope, took him up in his arms as tenderly as if he had been a child, and apparently with as much ease, and carried him after Seth to the Great Snow Lake. Here he was laid softly down, and the trapper proceeded in the most masterly manner to bathe and rinse Rory’s terrible wounds. The white milky juice from the fleshy stem of the curious plant was then dropped into them, and they were carefully covered over with bruised leaves.
“There is little else we can do now,” said Seth, “but set us down to watch.”
“And pray,” murmured McBain. Then he said aloud, “I do not doubt your skill, friend Seth, but here I fear there is more to contend with than mortal power can hope to cope with. The poor boy is dead.”
For well-nigh an hour they sat beside him; gloaming had deepened into night, and a fire had been lighted which brought forth Rembrandtine shadows from the woods, and cast its beams far over the broad lake, until they were swallowed up in the darkness. An hour, and yet no signs of returning life—a whole hour, and they still seemed to look on poor Rory as on the face of the dead.
But see! can they be mistaken? Did not his lips move? They did, and now they move again. A sigh is breathed, and presently one faint word is ejaculated.
The word was “Water.”
“He’ll live,” cried Seth; “he’ll live! This is the proudest day for the old trapper in the whole course of his born existence.”
And the cry of Rory for water was indeed the first sign of returning life. A few drops of the juice of that wonderful plant were squeezed into the wounded boy’s mouth, and, ten minutes after, the colour had returned to his face, and he was sleeping as sweetly and soundly as ever he had slept in his life.
McBain squeezed the hand of the honest trapper. In silence he pressed the trapper’s hand. Perhaps he could not have spoken at that moment had he wished to do so, for there was a moisture in his eyes that he had no need to be ashamed of.
While Rory sleeps calmly by the rude log fire, there is other and sadly mournful work to be attended to, for three of the Snowbird’s brave crew lie stark and stiff. So the dead had to be laid out, and the graves dug, where, as soon as sunrise, they would lie side by side with those who had so lately been their foes.
Two more men were wounded, but none so severely as Rory.
There was little sleep for any one in the camp that night, for they were constantly in dread of a renewed attack by the savages. Even the luxury of a fire was a danger, and yet upon this depended Rory’s very existence; but patrols were kept constantly moving through the forest near to prevent surprises.
“Yet I don’t think,” said Seth, “that them bothering blueskins will come around again. We’ve given them such a taste of our steel and our shooting-irons that it ain’t likely they’ll have an appetite for more for some days to come.”
“Shall you hunt them up in the morning,” asked Allan, “and have revenge?”
“No,” said McBain; “no, Allan. The principle is a bad one. People should fight in defence of their homesteads, fight for life and honour, but never to simply show their superiority or for mere revenge.”
Very simple was the service conducted by McBain by the graves of the fallen men. Very simple, and yet, methinks, none the less impressive. A psalm from the metrical version of Israel’s sweetest singer, and a prayer—that was all; then the graves were covered in and left, and there they lie by the side of that Great Snow Lake, with never a stone to mark the spot. Oh! but those three poor fellows will live for many a day and many a year in the memory of their messmates.
The march back to the Snowbird was a mournful one. The skins they had collected did not seem to have the same value now. McBain would not leave them behind, however. Duty must not be neglected, even in the midst of grief.
And Rory? Would he live? Would the blood ever bound again through his veins as of yore? Would he ever again be the bright-smiling, sunny-faced lad he had been? For weeks this was doubted. He lay on his bed, so pallid and worn that every one save Seth thought he was wearing away to the land o’ the leal. Seth would not give him up, though, and many a herb and balsam he gathered for him in the forest, and many a strange fish, cooked by Seth himself, was brought to tempt his appetite.
Seth came on board one day rejoicing.
“I have it now,” he cried; “the old trapper has done it at last. Now, boy Rory, as everybody calls you, you have nothing earthly to do in this wide world but get well. And you’ll eat what I brings, and nice you’ll find them, too.” And Seth proceeded to open a handkerchief and display to the astonished gaze of our heroes a lovely collection of large truffles.
“Why, truffles, I do declare!” exclaimed McBain. “I never imagined, friend Seth, that the geographical disposition of the truffle extended to these wild regions.”
“The trapper don’t speak a word o’ Greek,” said Seth, looking at McBain amusedly; “but them’s the truffles, right enough, and they are bound to send the last remnant o’ that vile blueskin’s pisen out o’ boy Rory’s blood.”
It was a magical stew that Seth concocted that day with those truffles. It even made Rory smile. Something of the old good-humour and happiness began to settle down on the hearts of the people of the Snowbird from that very hour, and when, a day or two after, Rory joined his mess mates at dinner, reclining on a sofa, all doubts for his safety were completely dispelled. Dr Seth, as he insisted upon calling the trapper, was invited to join the party, and not only he, but the three mates, and a pleasant evening, if not a merry one, was passed.