Unhappily for him, the gesture was misunderstood. The crack of half-a-dozen rifles responded promptly, and a couple of them took fatal effect. Poor Stanislas fell, badly wounded, with one bullet in his arm and another in his leg.
CHAPTER XI.
AMONG FRIENDS AGAIN.
McKay lay where he fell, and it was perhaps well for him that he was prostrate. The attacking parties soon desisted from firing, and charged forward at racing-pace, driving all who stood before them at the point of the bayonet. They swept over and past McKay, trampling him under foot in their hot haste to demolish the foe.
But the wave of the advance left McKay behind it, and well within the shelter of his own people.
Although badly wounded, he was not disabled, and he took advantage of the first pause in the fight to appeal for help to some men of the 38th who occupied the wall behind which he fell.
"You speak English gallows well for a Rooskie," said one of the men, brusquely, but not without sympathy. "What do you want? Water? Are you badly hit?"
"A bullet in my leg and a flesh-wound in my arm."