I had won; but what a price had the victory cost!
I bent over my wounded friend, my heart sick with my grief.
“Fly!” he whispered. Wounded sorely as he was, his thoughts were all for me and none for himself.
“There is no need, my dear friend. There’s no one to follow us. Can you bear for me to lift you on to my horse? We’re safe.”
“I’m glad. I’m not hurt much,” he whispered, trying to smile.
I lifted him in my arms, and, drawing my horse to a stone by the side of the road, managed to mount with him; and then, saving him all in my power from the jolting of the horse, I walked up the rest of the hill and over to the Servian station-house.
The men turned out to meet us.
“My friend is sorely wounded,” said I.
“I heard the firing, but my orders are not to interfere,” said the officer in command.
“The outrage was committed on Servian territory,” I replied.