“My pony is killed!”
“And your wife!” cried Honor, who was standing beside him. “Is your wife nothing?” she repeated with passionate energy.
In a second a swarm of coolies, syces, and their masters, led (to do him justice) by Toby Joy, were clambering down the jungle. Though very steep, it was not a sheer descent, and presently there came a shout of “All right.”
The bushes, brambles, and long twining hill-creepers had broken the fall and saved them.
The first to be brought up was Mrs. Sladen, minus her hat, assisted by two gentlemen, and looking exceedingly white and small. Next came Jervis, with a streak of blood on his face and a torn coat. Last of all, the pony emerged, struggling, scrambling, driven, and dragged by about twenty energetic syces.
“You are not badly hurt, I hope?” said Honor, who had hurried across the broken path, and was the first to greet her friend as she was helped up to the bank.
“Not she,” rejoined Colonel Sladen, brusquely; “she has only had the breath knocked out of her! Give her some whisky, and she will be all right.”
As his wife sat down on a flat stone, and, after bravely trying to reassure every one, suddenly burst into loud hysterical sobbing, he added—
“How can you behave in this cry-baby way, Milly? You are not a bit hurt—it was all your own fault” (every misfortune or mistake was invariably “her own fault”). “If you had not stayed shilly-shallying, but started when I told you——”
“Oh, shut up, will you?” interrupted Jervis in a furious undertone.