“Yes, my good fellow, you ought,” he said; “and I ought to have had that black scoundrel under lock and key days ago. But it is too late now to talk of what ought to have been done; we must talk of what there is to do.—But are you hurt?”
“He sent his knife through my jacket, sir,” I said, “but it’s only a scratch on the skin;” and fortunately that’s what it proved to be, for we had no room for wounded men.
Story 1—Chapter XI.
An hour of council, and then another—our two leaders not seeming to agree as to the extent of the coming danger. Challenge from the west roof: “Orderly in sight.”
Sure enough, a man on horseback riding very slowly, and as if his horse was dead beat.
“Surely it isn’t that poor fellow come back, because his horse has failed? He ought to have walked on,” said Captain Dyer.
“Same man,” said Lieutenant Leigh, looking through his glass; and before very long, the poor fellow who had gone away at daybreak rode slowly up to the gate, was admitted, and then had to be helped from his horse, giving a great sobbing groan as it was done.
“In here, quick!” I said, for I thought I heard the ladies’ voices; and we carried him in to where Mrs Bantem was, as usual, getting ready for dinner, and there we laid him on a mattress.