Dustiefoot cowered close to his mistress, and both were fortunately sheltered from the brunt of the storm by the closely interwoven branches under which they had taken shelter. Every now and then sticks and broken limbs, and all the débris that floats at large when the wind is blowing with hurricane violence over great tracts of thickly wooded country, fell around them. Now and then a branch was broken off overhead, and lifted high up as though it were a feather-weight. At each peal of thunder the dog gave a low growl, the hair round his neck bristling on end. Stella called him by name from time to time, but a trumpet-blast would have been lost in that terrific din as completely as a whisper. The touch of her hand on his head, however, seemed to reassure him. It was certain that the almost human intelligence of the dog's eyes, as he alternately fixed them wistfully on her face and looked abroad wrathfully when he gave a low growl, as if warning the elements not to go too far, gave Stella a sense of companionship, even of amusement. But the air seemed loaded with sulphureous vapours that gradually made her head feel at once giddy and very heavy. Once or twice she caught herself opening her eyes with the sudden start of one who has dozed. At such times Dustiefoot seemed more than ever on the alert with a brisk, protecting air. It was when the fury of the storm was spent that the thick end of a bough, which had been denuded in its flittings of all the lighter branches, crashed through the thinned-out boughs overhead, grazing Stella on the temple and falling heavily end-ways on poor Dustiefoot's left paw. He gave one low, yelping bark, but did not whine or moan once, though the jagged end of the storm's missile had cut and bruised him badly. The sight of the blood dripping from the wounded paw made Stella turn faint and cold. She could not spare her handkerchief in all that blinding dust, but she had a fine white silk one round her throat, and tearing this in two, she bound one half of it round the maimed limb. Dustiefoot lay close by her, his head in her lap, and more than ever, as the storm subsided, Stella felt that she could not keep her eyes open. She felt sure, however, that Dustiefoot would not let any vehicle or horseman pass by without giving timely notice. Already he had started up barking clamorously, but the passer-by each time was a stray bullock, which hurried into a thicker part of the woods as if fearful that the worst was yet to come.
Once or twice Stella aroused herself with thinking of the consternation her absence, through such a storm and on a horse of Orlando's character, would cause at Lullaboolagana. Well, at the worst they would send out in search of her when the evening drew near. And Dunstan had seen her take the road that led to Nareen. The atmosphere and the shock of the fall, and perhaps, too, the little blow on her temple and the previous night's vigils, all combined to bring on a queer feeling of stupor. She was not asleep nor insensible, and yet she felt as if even to move were a trouble. She felt a slow trickling on her temple, and thought it must be rain. A few large heat-drops had fallen as the storm abated, but nothing more. It was a little rivulet of blood which trickled from the left temple, where it was grazed by the tree-branch. She rested her head against a large, smooth bough behind her, and sat with closed eyes, deathly pale.
It seemed to her that hours passed as she sat in this way—never wholly unconscious, yet overcome with an irresistible languor. In reality only half an hour had passed, till one drove up rapidly in a buggy, with Orlando led captive behind it. It was Dr. Langdale on his way from Nareen. He had been caught in the storm, but was fortunately in the stringy bark wood where the trees were covered with vigorous young foliage. In the Wicked Wood the ground was simply littered with dead wood, which the violence of the storm had strewn broadcast like chaff. Half-way he saw Orlando, which he failed to recognise as one of the Lullaboolagana horses, but he knew the side-saddle daintily embroidered with scarlet. A horrible fear shot through his heart, but he strove to believe that it was misplaced. He could never quite recall how he got through the Wicked Wood. He kept glancing from side to side at the great withered trunks and limbs that the storm had felled, his mind filled with a sickening apprehension of what the next turning might have in store.
He breathed more freely when the Wicked Wood was left behind. A few minutes afterwards he recognised Dustiefoot's barking. Then, in one awful moment, he saw his worst forebodings beggared by the ghastly reality—Stella white and death-like, her face stained with blood. 'My God! my God!' he cried, with the intolerable agony of a strong man suddenly smitten beyond endurance. Stella heard the words distinctly, and recognised the voice. She had a struggling consciousness that if she willed it she could open her eyes and speak, but a kind of hunger fastened on her to hear what further he would say on perceiving her thus apparently insensible. She did not know how cruelly like death she looked—her face ghastly white, stained with dust and blood. In a moment he was by her side, kneeling by her, his breath coming in quick gasps. 'Oh! my darling, my darling—my darling!' he cried, his voice failing him with mortal fear. And then quick compunction seized on Stella, and she sighed softly. So extreme was his agitation, that for a moment he could hardly believe she was not mortally hurt. But he found that her heart beat with energy, he saw her eyelids quivering, and a faint tinge of colour stealing into her cheeks. She recovered consciousness slowly, so that he might not know she had heard those impassioned words which held the sweetest music that had ever fallen on her ears, also that he might not know the perfidy of which she had been guilty.
'You are badly hurt, I fear,' he said, as she at last looked up. His voice still thrilled with the sharp emotions which had rent him, but he had regained his self-possession.
'Dustiefoot is worse than I am,' she answered. She felt so absurdly happy that it was a surprise to her to find her voice so thin and faint.
Langdale went to his trap and produced one of those cases which are sometimes called the 'Bushman's Christian Companion.'
When it is remembered that such a case should contain a flask of the best brandy, with a neat silver top that can be used as a cup, also a flask of water and a pound or so of biscuits, the term will not seem out of place, especially if it is further remembered that those who make journeys in the Bush may often go scores of miles without seeing a human habitation of any kind. But perhaps the term is never so beautifully appropriate as when, as in the present instance, it is incumbent on the possessor of such a case, in the interests alike of science and humanity, to play the Good Samaritan.
'Now, one, two, three—and you are to drink this, every sup.'
'Do you really carry medicine about with you?' said Stella, with a little pout, as she sniffed the mixture.