"Yes; hit in the head. See, here's a big scalp wound," whispered Dick, making a rapid examination, and discovering blood welling from a nasty wound just above the Commander's forehead. "I'm not much used to this sort of thing, Alec, but I imagine that he's not very badly hurt. He's stunned, of course, and the thing is to know how to deal with him. First thing, anyway, is to tie a handkerchief round the wound. Get another match ready. Strike when I tell you to. Now. I've got his head lifted on to my knee and my handkerchief unfolded. Strike now."
With the help of that feeble glimmer, lasting perhaps for half a minute, they bound up the Commander's wound, and then, finding a raised piece of ground close to the wall, gently lowered his head upon it.
"Better than nothing. It'll act like a cushion," said Dick. "Now?"
"Ah—a dickens of a business! There's the Commander down and wounded, Major Harvey lost, perhaps dead for all we know, or only a prisoner; and this Charlie, whom we've never seen, and hardly heard of, somewhere in this awful city. What's to be done?"
"That's what I asked you," came quickly from Dick. "Let's see, we could make a flare with your box of matches I suppose, and so call the attention of Mr. Andrew. Pish! That's funking. Never! Besides, the airship's gone by now. Didn't it strike three as we were descending?"
"Three, yes; what's the time now?"
"At a guess four o'clock. Might be less; feels as though it were a heap more."
That, in fact, was the position. So much had happened since they set foot in this besieged city of Adrianople, that hours might have passed, and Dick really felt as if they had. And yet he knew well enough that that was not possible. But the mention of the hour made him recollect matters of greater moment.
"George!" he cried, "it will be light soon, and we shall be seen unless we manage to discover a hiding-place of sorts. Lor! This is the maddest kind of expedition I have ever been on, for here we are wanting a place in which to hide, and yet our job is to discover two individuals whom we can't possibly recognize unless we see 'em in broad daylight."