As he spoke, Trevyllian’s features grew deadly livid; his half-open mouth quivered slightly, his eyes became fixed, and his arm dropped heavily beside him, and with a low moan he fell fainting to the ground.
As we bent over him I now perceived that another person had joined our party; he was a short, determined-looking man of about forty, with black eyes and aquiline features. Before I had time to guess who it might be, I heard O’Shaughnessy address him as Colonel Conyers.
“He is dying!” said Beaufort, still stooping over his friend, whose cold hand he grasped within his own. “Poor, poor fellow!”
“He fired in the air,” said Baker, as he spoke in reply to a question from Conyers.
What he answered I heard not, but Baker rejoined,—
“Yes, I am certain of it. We all saw it.”
“Had you not better examine his wounds?” said Conyers, in a tone of sarcastic irony I could almost have struck him for. “Is your friend not hit? Perhaps he is bleeding?”
“Yes,” said O’Shaughnessy, “let us look to the poor fellow now.” So saying, with Beaufort’s aid he unbuttoned his frock and succeeded in opening his waistcoat. There was no trace of blood anywhere, and the idea of internal hemorrhage at once occurred to us, when Conyers, stooping down, pushed me aside, saying at the same time,—
“Your fears for his safety need not distress you much,—look here!” As he spoke he tore open his shirt, and disclosed to our almost doubting senses a vest of chain-mail armor fitting close next the skin and completely pistol-proof.
I cannot describe the effect this sight produced upon us. Beaufort sprang to his feet with a bound as he screamed out, rather than spoke, “No man believes me to have been aware—”