There might have been something in his agonised accents that made itself heard in Geordie's closed and senseless ears, and that called back the life that was fluttering within him to depart, for at Alec's cry a feeble tiny sigh just parted the dying boy's pale lips, and his eyelids quivered as though they would unclose.
Alec gave one wild shriek of rapture.
"Thank Heaven, he is not dead! Murri, Murri," he cried, in his new-born joy, "bring water. Burrima, burrima" (quickly, quickly).
Murri, who had been so intent on his own part of the fight as not to notice what had happened to the boys, turned round and loosed Dandy's bridle as he heard Alec's cry. He now saw that "Missa Law," his friend and favourite, was dead or badly wounded, and rushed to his side to help. He saw at once what was necessary, and ran to the other side of the rock, where he had tied the bridles of the five horses to the stem of a sturdy little tree that grew in a cleft of the rock.
The water, from one of the battered tins in which they carried it, was quite tepid from the heat of the sun, but it served to revive George a little, and the deathly pallor passed from his face. In a few moments, as the effects of the stunning blow he had received began to pass away, he opened his eyes and looked about him in a dazed, astonished way. At last he looked up and saw Alec's face anxiously bending over him, then he seemed to remember where he was.
"What is the matter?" he said, faintly. "Are we all here, and have they gone away? Tell me, are you hurt, Arrick?"
It was an old pet name of his for his brother, formed when he was a little lad and could not yet speak plainly. In his terrible weakness he seemed to drop, unconsciously, into the old familiar habit.
Alec's voice was husky when he answered, though he did his best to speak quite calmly.
"No, I'm all right, Geordie, lad; but you are hurt and mustn't talk."
"My head, is it?" he said, vaguely; and then, as Alec and Murri lifted him from the ground to carry him to the shade of a clump of trees that stood a little to one side at the entrance to the glen, his eyes closed with faintness, and he seemed to slip off again to insensibility.