“Ahoy! Duncan, ahoy!”
It was a distant hail from high up on the track.
“Heaven be praised!” cried my father, and then he shouted, “Chowne, ahoy!”
There was an answering hail, and in five minutes more Doctor Chowne came scrambling down the side of the ravine upon his pony, with Bob hanging on to its tail.
“My dear boy!” exclaimed the doctor, grasping my father’s hand. “We heard the guns, and could make out the lights of a big vessel off here. I was afraid that something was wrong, and going up the hill yonder I could see the glow in the sky. That decided me, and we came over together. Anybody hurt?”
“Well, yes, a little,” said my father grimly.
As he spoke the first grey dawn of morning was beginning to show in the valley and mingle strangely with the glow of the big fire and of the sickly flickering gleam above the burned-out cottages.
It was a doleful sight upon which the doctor gazed round as he stripped off his coat. My father, blackened, scorched, and blood-stained, was standing with the foreman, six men were sitting or half reclining on the ground, and four more lay on their backs as if insensible.
It was a ghastly answer to the question, “Is anybody hurt?” for there was no one without a serious wound.
“Ah! I see,” said the doctor grimly. “Well, is anybody killed?”