"You get um water?" he said, with excitement ringing in every tone of his voice, as he turned to Murri.
"Bail water bong along o' this place," said Murri; shaking his head. "All um water up at station." Then, as a sudden idea seemed to strike him, he sprang up and said, "Mine go cotch um yarroman. Plenty much water in um bockle."
When Alec had ridden up alongside of Pearson, and leaped from his horse on to the bushranger's, Amber had turned, and getting out of the mêlée had joined the horse from which Murri had so quietly slipped at the beginning of difficulties. The bushrangers had not stayed to catch them, but had swept on to overtake Alec and Pearson, and the two Wandaroo horses had stopped not very far from where Geordie lay, and were quietly grazing as well as they could with their bits in their mouths.
Murri succeeded in catching Amber without much difficulty, and brought a tin bottle of water to Yesslett, who opened it and found that there was a little water swilling about at the bottom of it. With this the boy wetted George's lips and sprinkled his face, and he had the satisfaction of seeing a faint look of life return to the face that gleamed so white and ghastly in the moonlight. Fearing that the sight of blood would alarm Margaret and his aunt when they got back to the house, he washed it away with the rest of the water.
A few minutes afterwards Yesslett heard the welcome sound of voices and hurrying footsteps, and in another moment three or four men from the station and the white-clad figure of Margaret, who had managed to keep pace with the men, her awful anxiety giving her strength, were with him.
Margaret's great force of character stood her in good stead just then. She turned deathly pale when she saw her brother lying there, but she repressed all other expression of her emotion. The girl threw herself down by the side of the senseless boy, and raising his head laid it against the heart that was beating so strongly with love for him. She chafed his hands, and lifting back the moist hair from his forehead fanned him with a fold of her white skirt; but as his eyes remained closed and he gave no further sign of life she turned to her cousin, and in an agonised voice cried out—
"Oh, Yesslett, is he dead? Geordie, my poor Geordie!"
"No, he is not dead, I think he is only stunned. We must get him back as quickly as possible to the house. Aunt will know best what to do. I think he must have fallen from his horse, for I can find no sign of a wound about him."
"Where is Alec? What does it all mean?" asked Margaret, who now seemed to remember that her other brother was not present. "It is something very terrible, I'm sure, for Alec would never leave Geordie in this way. He must be dead, for as long as he drew breath he would never desert his brother."
"We thinks it is rather terrible, Miss," said Balchin, one of the men who had been questioning Murri whilst Margaret was attending to her brother, "From what we can make out of this black chap, Miss—it's Murri, Miss, as went with Mr. Alec and George—they've been set on by them bushrangers. He says, Murri do, that there was 'plenty much' of 'em, and that Mr. Alec shot wone of 'em dead, he was that mad like at seeing of Mr. George being throwed, and that then they ups—yes, Miss, the bushranger fellers—and takes Mr. Alec off along with them. That was the way he says they went, Miss," ended Balchin, pointing with a rough, red hand to the south.