Another ten minutes, and they were upon the plateau. Desmond had no difficulty in finding out where the headquarters were established at Hayse, and, riding there, he at once went into the house occupied by Berwick, and reported his return.
"I am glad to see you back again, Kennedy," the duke said, heartily. "It is something to have recovered one friend from the wreck. Now, what is your news?"
Desmond related what had happened to him from the time he left, and said that a large proportion of the troops at Diepenbeck had already left, and, as he heard no outburst of firing, he hoped most of them had got safely away.
"I see you are wounded."
"I have had my wrist smashed with a musket ball, fired by a party on a hill to the right, belonging, I suppose, to the force that came up from Oycke."
"You had a narrow escape of your life," Berwick said. "If you had been hit a little farther back, the ball would have gone through your body. Sit down at once. I will send for my surgeon."
And he instantly gave orders for the surgeon of the staff to come to his tent, and then made Desmond, who was suffering terribly from the agony of the wound, drink a tumbler of wine.
"I know you are all busy, doctor," the duke said, as the surgeon entered, "but you must do something for Mr. Kennedy, who is badly wounded in the arm."
The surgeon examined the wound, and shook his head.
"Both bones are fractured," he said, "and I am afraid that there is nothing for it but amputation."